


Winter Soldier: Project Constellation

by ScarlettsLetters



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Boys in Chains, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Cold War, Espionage, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Hardcore, Hydra (Marvel), Light Bondage, M/M, Makeup Sex, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Orgasm Control, Public Sex, Rescue Missions, SHIELD, Sexpionage, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents, Stucky - Freeform, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-03-31 09:25:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 64,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13972101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettsLetters/pseuds/ScarlettsLetters
Summary: In the shadow of the Cold War, a SHIELD agent watches as a Soviet soldier claims an artifact he sacrificed his team protect. No one considers the young man to be anything except a grunt -- until Phil Coulson strips off his mask and sees the face of the Winter Soldier. Officially declared dead, Bucky Barnes defected six months earlier. Who is the captive? The shadowy assassin bearing HYDRA's bloody imprimatur fights against his old masters under Peggy Carter's directive. Working to unearth deadly secrets, Agent Barnes re-enters the devastating game of duplicity and espionage. With Steve Rogers at his side, he heads inexorably toward a reckoning that will redefine everything he knows.The rules of the game, and of the world, have changed. It's no longer every man for himself.





	1. Spies Like Me

**Author's Note:**

> November 1983. Not since World War Two -- the night Captain America claimed the Tesseract -- has the Doomsday Clock been so close to midnight. The Soviet Union and NATO rattle sabres against a backdrop of military exercises and assassinations. In the shadows, SHIELD agents strive to keep deadly secrets out of the wrong hands. The Winter Soldier has only recently defected back to American hands, controlled tightly by the premiere spymaster, Peggy Carter. They're in for a nasty surprise: he wasn't the only super soldier, after all....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has only recently come in from the cold to SHIELD. Coulson puts that trust on the line as a secret weapon against Soviet agents operating in the Middle East.

_ 0200 hrs, New York City. _   
  
Most of the day shift working in the glorified cages at the Triskelion headed out two to three hours ago. Their replacements are more of a skeleton crew, crunching through data obtained by various agents, operatives, and listening posts stationed around the world. It's commonly understood the night shift's "happy hour" starts around 0500 hours, aka 5 AM, when global hotspots rev up to activity.   
  
Nothing much indicates tonight should be any more or less tense than any other. Geopolitics waits on no man or woman. In the bowels of the building, analysts trudge through reports and feeds, intercept transmissions and tap party-lines. Their superiors wonder why they're condemned to a nocturnal existence.   
  
And Phil Coulson knows perfectly well things have already hit the fan when chased down by a lackey about "Boxer" — shorthand for an operation currently ongoing in the Mediterranean, involving Agent Sill. One highly sensitive operation in which Communist powers that be, through guerilla fighters are, plausibly taking kicks at the hornet's nest.   
  
The lackey in question is trying to jog the half mile down stairs back to one of the secure areas kitted out with top-of-the-line technology, where analysts live in almost perpetual darkness squinting at fuzzy green monitors or microfiches, huge headphones over their ears, miles of tape rolling to capture every crackle. It's not a good sign if one of those birds started squawking.   
  
Coulson makes it a point to spend one graveyard shift here each week. This week marks the second night in a row he's been here for the spooky night shift, which explains why he hasn't been seen around HQ. Armed with a mug of coffee and a tablet of paper in hand, he's hunched over one of those data crunchers with a squint to his eye and a smirk on his face. "Jansen," he calls toward one of the HAM radio operators, "you just keep trying to pick up that broadcast in South Korea. I need your ears, pal. Need 'em badly."   
  
Melinda is awake because she only sleeps for three hours a night. Or so it seems like, surely. Most days she is never far from Coulson’s side, a trusted aide in the midranks of SHIELD, with an eye to service to the country. Tonight is no different. She walks the hallway back towards her quarters for the night, slowly drawn in by the sounds of the chaos consuming Agent Coulson's attention.   
  
A good agent is a well-rounded agent, that’s the prevailing theory in the agency. At the very least, he should have some service in each section in order to be able to see the larger picture. Extracted from his lab, he’s a week into his month long stint. The life of an analyst is most definitely not to his taste. Well, Fitz resents the slow pace of the night, right up to the moment all hell broke loose. As soon as Coulson signals the radios and action erupts, he swivels. 

Then there’s Clint, busy scrubbing records or trying to sneak past a mickey when Coulson isn’t looking. Okay, perhaps not. He lounges in a chair at an angle, thumbing over a folder full of material. No one likes pulling the night shift. An exciting night shift? “This mean we actually get to go out on field duty?” Like no one else here, he sounds rather excited.   
  
Jansen may have wished his college career never translated into action. The HAM operator grimaces over his console, a desk cut from a slab to support several radios and a large amplifier. He keeps twisting the squat knobs, inching them along while examining the multimeters hopefully. Arrows dance and wobble. When no one's looking, he thwacks the metal case with his palm, making the tuning capacitor hum ominously.   
  
Speakers from another direction crackle and grumble, and the second operator — Campbell — squeezes the radio speaker while a secondary pair of earpieces lie on the desk.   
  
An explosive crackle of noise comes through. Desperate attempts to train any sort of images on the screens get no more than crackling white blizzards. Televised broadcasts shouldn’t be this difficult, but they leave much to be desired tonight.   
  


* * *

0800 hours, Beirut.   
A man's voice emerges among the muffled thumps and grumbling of engines, shouts and bounces an indistinct storm in the background.   
  
"Is the boss there? Balls on toast, Campy, patch me through…"   
  
Static interrupts his transmission.   
  
"…better hear about this before Beirut's hoisting a sickle and marching red through the streets. Confirm you've got him, got someone. I can't guarantee…. long the link…"   
  
Swearing in Arabic is plenty universal.   
  
"I … Katyusha just rolled pas…."   
  


* * *

Having already briefed Clint on assignments over the past week, Coulson glances his way. "Nothing substantive, not yet. Some action on the HAM waves last night. Everything that could be going wrong is. I’ve got conflicts in Bucharest, Angola, Busan, the North Atlantic, and most of the Middle East. So this? Could be sunspots, could be weather, but Jansen here is convinced it --"   
  
Phil is cut off at the screaming from Campbell's amplifier, and he cranks his head toward the other technician with a grimace drawn across his face. "Jansen!" he calls, and snaps his fingers twice, gesturing toward Campbell's console. Coulson isn't wearing his SHIELD uniform, but rather, the suit and tie he's commonly seen wearing. That uniform is for field ops, in his opinion; his one way of bucking the system, and perhaps, his only method of doing so.   
  
"Is it 'Boxer'?" he asks, holding up a hand to silence anyone else who comes near. Amateur radio is a complicated science, and at such a distance from the other end of the globe, locking in on that signal is going to be mighty difficult, unless SHIELD's repeaters and satellites are able to pick it up.   
  
With that in mind, Coulson suddenly dashes over toward a handful of MC operators, who sit tapping away at their morse code inputs. "Signal the repeaters," he tells them. "Lock in on this range." He begins jotting down a range of frequencies based on where Campbell's tuner was noted, and tosses the tablet before the MC operators.   
  
Melinda overhears the burst of Arabic and makes her way to the communication area. Given that she speaks the language and, in her experience, chaotic situations lead to easy mistranslations, she suspects her language skills might be necessary, even if her martial ones are not. Yet. She sets aside her cup of tea and drops into an empty chair, pulling it up to a station. Headphones plug in easily to a jack and she squints at the screen. “Where is this coming from? A hotspot?”   
  
Fitz takes a couple steps over to the radio but stops. He pulls down his pen and pad of paper. “Beirut. Two weeks ago French and American peacekeepers were bombed.” He ticks off the facts, wincing a little at the noise. “Complete mess right over there. We’ve people down there in a civil war.”    
  
Repeaters, relays, satellite uplinks, and technical mumbo-jumbo only Tony Stark remotely fathoms do their job. The operators leap to the tablet like kittens on a sparkly foil ball.   
  
Campbell elbows the headphones to anyone who needs them, bent over a pad of paper and painstaking writing out notes in a shorthand cipher. His interruption is short: "Boxer. Radioed at twenty-oh-four-niner, dropped for one minute. We're on third contact. Instructions, sir?" One squeeze of the radio opens it both ways, after all.   
  
His pencil scratches notes as the flickering silence around them strobes a weird shade of green and grey usually seen only on submarines and naval consoles.

* * *

Agent Sill repeats himself: "Confirm, Katyusha in sight."

  
A burst of silence lasts maybe 8 seconds, interrupted by a staccato boom and rustling. "I'm locked down in a warehouse. Trying to figure out what's happening. Personnel started retreating back to three reinforced buildings fifteen minutes ago."   
  
The background noise becomes louder, grumbling engines turning into a throaty, rattling presence like elephants stampeding past. Sill's swearing again.   
  
"Four… repeat four BTR-40A transports. Machine guns on a traverse turret. What the hell are APCs doing in Bourj Hammoud? This is a shithole port town. Someone give me some really good reasons why we got anti-aircraft guns rolling in?"   
  
Another explosive burst of noise follows, and the sound of him hitting the ground.   


* * *

Through the squealing and bursts, Clint stays in place. No one needs him rushing around the communications room, and his eyes are glued to the screens relaying fuzzy information in a snowstorm. His eyes narrow, a web of wrinkles flowering at the corners. “None of this looks any good. Shit.” A pause there, and he looks back at Melinda. “We need to get a bird in the air.” 

Coulson listens carefully to the transmission, his eyes moving from one face to the other. "Hold it," Coulson tells Campbell, hand in the air. No instructions for Agent Sill, not just yet. His attention travels to Melinda, and he whips over a tablet of paper for his XO to use should she wish to translate any of what she hears. Then his eyes move to Fitz; worry there, but going no further. He finally lays eyes upon Clint, and he will see it; regret.   
  
The senior agent turns back to Campbell with a grave tone of voice. "Protocol Zebra Zero Niner."   
  
Protocol Z09. Universal standard SHIELD code; if you're spotted, use the cyanide.   
  
Melinda translates, but doesn't have much to add of note, sliding the paper across to Coulson, "Your friend in Lebanon has a foul mouth. I suspect he spends too much time in European brothels," she says.   
  
She peers at the others present over her paper, perhaps surprised at the youth of their analysts. This is a sophisticated intelligence operation, after all, and young faces tend to be banished from the room as things go pear-shaped. "There seems to be some sort of Russian incursion. A bold maneuver, if so. They generally prefer to use local proxies rather than risk their own. It must be something important."   
  
Fitz looks over at Clint, trying to stifle his rising concern. Not much of a chance there, what with his sandy brows creeping higher and higher. The cause of his surprise may be unclear, but he scribbles a rough, quick message on the notepad and lifts it up for everyone to read.  **_Our man is surrounded._ **   
  
One of the MCs says, "We've got him in the wild, flush up against Beirut. 33'53 north, 35'43 east. It's on Saint George’s Bay…" 

Another adds, "Eastern Mediterranean Sea."   
  
Jenkins swivels in his seat. "Hearing a ton of chatter out of there. Bunch of gnats trying to sting a navy ship or something? American captain's been getting mighty steamed up. I didn’t even know we  _ had _ a ship out there so close to Lebanon."   
  
Campbell's face is already pretty pale. He doesn't get a lot of sunshine given his night owl job, but it turns Hallowe'en-costume pasty after that statement. His pencil laid flat on the paper, he depresses a button to the side of the mouthpiece and repeats, "Protocol Zebra Zero Niner."   
  
The next burst of sound from the radio is practically deafening, squeals and rumbling of a deranged jungle demon awakening from its sleep. It continues for a solid minute of shrill noises interrupted by very human screams and Sill scrambling. Probably getting up, from under something.   
  


* * *

 

"Fucking hell!"   
  
A distant cry, Melinda is sure to understand: "«Crusaders! They are making a turn, tell Comrade Sokolov!»"   
  
Sill hisses under his breath, "Boss man, forget the pill. I'm seeing Soviet vehicles here. Looking bad, these guys aren't Arabic. They're closing on one of the labs where they were storing salvage brought out from the port."   
  
"Soviet…. armed to the…."   
  
More noises as he's clearly on the move, the whispers of burlap and the rattling of metal a weird, eerie disjointed hymn. "They….  _ Look like the Winter Soldier _ ."   
  
His emphasis is incredibly loud thanks to Jensen twisting the dial volume high enough for the whole Triskelion to hear it. "REPEAT THE WINTER SOLDIER IS HERE. SEVERAL WINTER SOLDIERS. Awh hei dao, girls, this went to hell in a handbasket and I didn't bring my red dancing shoes. Advise. Forget your pill."   
  


* * *

"He knows too much," Coulson tells Clint quietly. "We can't have an American agent captured alive… especially if there are Russians, let alone the Iranians. Hezbollah, PLO, and half the militants in the Middle East are loose cannons." His quiet and collected demeanor is briefly broken, when he tilts his head downward and lets loose a seething oath. "God damnit!"

  
It’s but a brief moment of emotion. Once let loose, Coulson is his usual self again; cool and in complete control. He turns toward a stray agent and motions toward one of the stairwells to the left. "Go fetch Barnes from holding. Make it snappy."   
  
He turns back to the reports, listening now as they come across in rapid fire. However, when Sill reports that the Soviets look like the Winter Soldier. His eyes go wide, and he turns toward the agent he'd just dispatched. "GET BARNES IN HERE, NOW!"

Whatever kindness he's shown in the base in New York, where he's got friends and thus by proxy a teeny bit of pull, here in the Triskelion, it's a very different situation. He's a prisoner, down to shackles and jumpsuit, and he's born with the new iteration of captivity with mute, deadpan patience. Thus it's that expressionless calm that he's wearing as he comes in, the zek's mask. Or, more accurately, is frog-marched in by a trio of attending agents. His hands are bound behind him, and there's the soft crackle of excess energy from whatever electronic device has the metal arm locked and subdued.   
  
That a crisis is in progress is clear, but he offers nothing right off the bat, looking to Coulson as the obvious MFIC for whatever mess they're observing from a hemisphere away.   
  
Melinda finds herself looking placidly into Coulson's face as the agent screams for Bucky. "Breathe, sir. Your wrath crosses the oceans as slowly as your fists and with less impact," she says. It’s not much to offer, but a reminder of their longstanding balance of calm and emotional restraint she projects.    
  
"If an agent is captured, then we will extract them. Breaking a trained operative takes time and I assume anyone entrusted with secrets has the capacity to withstand interrogation. If not indefinitely, then at least long enough for a rescue to be staged," Clint replies sharply. He subtly pats his leg to check for the closeness of a knife and a pistol. Not that either may do much, but precautions are precautions.    
  
"Hi. I’m Fitz.” The scientist rooted to the headphones stammers out a greeting, turning his head to observe the Winter Soldier’s arrival. “You’re new around here. Aren’t you? Uh, hi. Hello. Right, that’s it, hello.” Would Agent Coulson care to explain himself? The colour draining from his complexion and the stammer accelerates the speed of his Scottish brogue past where he might be truly comfortable. He has heard of this man -- who in SHIELD with any kind of clearance hasn’t? He is just a man, and more than a man, a legend encountered in the flesh. No wonder the chair squeaks as he sets his back to the wall.

  
"He knows too much.” Agent Jansen repeats Phil’s statement in a mutter, and tries to speak up over the fractured pauses that Bucky’s appearance creates. He covers the mic on his headset, though the patter of his palm hitting it makes a faint thunderous clap. "Cyanide? Can't we do an extraction? Melinda can get a jet there there. Hell, even with rocket fire, I know Melinda can get us back." Even as he says this he sounds uncertain, swiveling over to Fitz and fixing him with a steady, solid look. Always trust the scientist to have an idea. “Look, we have a solid signal. What are the chances you can lock the Quinjet onto the source? Would the computers be able to plot a faster course?”

The questions are plain as day, and Clint grits his teeth. “It won’t get us there in time. Even breaking the sound barrier, this will be long over by the time we get boots on the ground.”

As he finishes, the radio lights up again.

* * *

Sill isn't known for his gallows humour. Blame stress. "So much for the 1983 friendship Lebanese-Soviet sausage festival tomorrow. Not with all the soldiers everywhere!" There's Bucky, ruining a Communist culinary celebration.

"The soldiers are fanning out. I can't get a clear view. They didn't come out of the vehicles, though. APCs are carrying something else. They're doing some kind of sweep. APCs are manned still. Guns pointed at the salvage holding cells and a lab complex. PLO, a few Soviet advisors on friendship status there."   
  
It's almost unnecessary for Sill to relay what the radio announces a moment later. Machine guns mounted to a vehicle have a very specific tonality to them, a rattle of gunfire slanted to a thin tinny echo thousands of miles away.   
  
Whatever goes down in that warehouse, it could well be the agent is now digging himself a nice hole to hide in for all the faint clicks. More knowledgeable souls probably recognize a magazine being loaded.   
  
"Situation here is compromised. Request immediate extraction, map point delta-seven," Sill hisses. "Repeat, immediate extraction, map point delta-seven. And if you're sending in the angels, avoid map point echo-three. You'll incinerate me and probably six? Eight civilians. They're not — "

* * *

  
The line echoes and pops. Campbell and Jensen twist knobs to suppress the loud retort of it.   
  
"Yes, but if the extraction fails?" Coulson asks Melinda, turning his attention then upon Clint. "Then we have more American agents in this hot spot."   
  
He turns then, when Bucky is brought in. A look is given to Fitz and Jansen as they try to sort out this transportation trick, but finally, Melinda. He only looks at her for a second, maybe two, but it feels like forever. A hardened gaze goes to the radio, and the time to make the decision is suddenly there. “I think we have to call her.”

Melinda’s eyes tighten, the lone sign of her discomfort. She taps the pen against her notepad and finally goes still. “Will Fury clear it? She hasn’t got the clearance needed for an operation like this.” 

  
"The Maximoff girl gets us in, she gets us out, or else it's World War Three. Melinda, relay the request." Coulson nods his head toward Clint, indicating the rest of the agents join him, likely make any last minute preparations. Then, he's crossing over toward Bucky, staring the Winter Soldier right in the eyes. "And we're gonna need you, too. You with me, soldier?"   
  
It's like watching ice fissure, the way Bucky's expression shifts from blank calm to growing dismay. Of course they'd've made more - he was always flawed. But then Coulson's right in front of him. No hesitation in his reply. "Yes," he says, simply. "I'm with you." A chance to prove his true loyalties, or get lost in the swarm that's out there. Button, button, who's got the button?   
  
All at once, the ease falls away from the archer. Clint pockets a scrap of paper and jumps up from his seat, already rolling into motion. “ _ Wanda _ ? You get her, there’s no point even warmin’ up the engines.” He rubs his face with his hand. “Everyone get your hats on, your sidearms ready, and your game faces on. This isn’t gonna be a bumpy ride so much as an alarmingly fast one.” 

Melinda plugs into the computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard placed in front of her. The faint glow reflecting off her face strobes weakly green, fading out into a shiver of pale light. For a few moments, the sounds of typing dulls the conversation if not completely silences it. 

  
Fitz takes a deep breath and whispers to Clint, “Wanda? How is she going to get us in any faster?”

“Teleportation,” Coulson replies. Yes, he heard that, even if that may leave someone questioning how his sense of hearing is that acute. “Close your mouth, Agent Fitz, you’re acting like a schoolboy looking at a particle accelerator. She can open gates that link one point of space to another.” 

Bucky takes a deep breath and stares at the screens around him. He otherwise has no direct need to insert himself into the conversation, but the mention for teleportation holds the same effect on him as it appears to for the other agents of SHIELD scattered around. Words halt. Skeptical looks settle in, and he raises his eyebrows slightly.   
  
"Sir," mutters one of the other radio operators. "It sounds like the Navy launched aircraft close to those coordinates. We're not patching in to avoid violating protocol. But I think they've got an operation going."   
  
The aides escorting Bucky glare and exchange unhappy looks, for here is an agent confessing their captive happens to be running amok in Lebanon. "You sure about this?" one dares to ask Coulson.   
  
Identification of  _ another _ Winter Soldier out there could be a mistake on Agent Sill's part. Yet, the definition of him and his appearance is known to those with the highest levels of clearance.    
  
Coulson nods his head once to Bucky, and there is a smile. He's got trust for the Winter Soldier as well; he'll let Bucky prove whether that's worth the investment once they get to Lebanon. "Release him," he tells the questioning agent who accompanied Bucky. "That's an order." The senior agent is quick, then, moving toward a supply locker. There, SHIELD keeps emergency provisions, the kind one needs for a sudden field operation. Radios with enough power to link into the nearest SHIELD repeater, field rations, first aid kids and the like. He tosses one to Fitz, and another toward Bucky, after the Winter Soldier has had his bindings once again released.   
  
To that radio operator, Coulson gives one final order. "Then call Washington. Wake the damn President if we have to, tell him what the hell is going on here." With that, he snatches a sidearm from one of the agents who had escorted Bucky, then steps up closer to the others.

  
To the ignorant, he is only the sad-eyed amputee in a SHIELD prison jumpsuit, at least. But Bucky straightens up a fraction more, and the smile fades into that grim expression. The Russians are going to have him again and all of this little sojourn in New York will be less than a dream. It should be comforting, that the cryostasis vaults next to him won't be empty anymore….   
  
He flexes the metal arm, and there's a whine of tiny servos reactivating, the ripple of plates slipping back into place like feathers on a bird's wing. Then he's accepting what Coulson gives him, and stepping into place beside the agent. "Strike the bell and bide the danger," he mutters, under his breath. Well, Sharon's been getting him reading material….   
  


For all of Melinda’s typing, she ceases after a moment. “Incoming.” She rises from her chair, smartly straightening her sleeves and heading to Clint.

All the warning they get. Nothing happens. None here are able to see the fabric of reality parting to the clarion song of magic, the bending and twisting forms. It’s only in the very last parting of air that there is any sign of activity, atoms pushed aside to permit a young woman clad in a burgundy leather coat to step out of aether. A whorl of incarnadine energy puddles around her feet, dissipating in thin veils of tinted mist.

Fitz stares with his mouth hanging open until he remembers to click it shut. The archer puts a hand on his shoulder, pulling him close. “Come on. Game face, remember. When the hole opens, in you go.” No, he has not been waiting weeks to say that.

Coulson gives Wanda a smart nod and then says, “We need to get to Lebanon. You know where you’re going?” 

“Enough.” Light accentation betraying her origins wraps around Wanda’s English. She draws a deep breath and holds out her hands, the glow in her eyes going telltale scarlet bright. Radiant lines crash together and blend into a burning, widening portal that stretches out. The room blurs, going indistinct around the spinning disk. She stands at the center, straddling the point between the comms room and a dusty street overlooked by scarred buildings gutted by fire and violence.   


"Let’s ride some lightning," Clint says, and starts in through the portal. He reaches back for his bow, a savage grin headed into place. 

Melinda and Fitz follow in lockstep behind him, Bucky urged on by a nod from the senior agent. Phil is the last through, gun in hand, out to face the outcome of oblivion.   


The remaining operatives will be filing reports in triplicate to Peggy once men and women start spontaneously vanishing from sight. Jansen scrambles back to the wall and trips over a chair. Campbell is left croaking into his radio. "Angels incoming."

* * *

  
**FIRE AND FURY**   
One might be forgiven for thinking Coulson led them to Hell.   
  
An inferno engulfs their immediate surroundings, in part thanks to a building on fire and, around it, the thin greenery of a subtropical landscape meeting the jade waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Hot and stinking of charred metal, blazing oil, and pork chop sandwiches, welcome to Saint George’s Bay.   
  
Through a screen of sparks and black, oily smoke, figures move in chaotic choreography; some are hunched and mincing, others moving in precise lockstep through the billowing gloom. Low structures scattered higgledy-piggledy around crooked streets too close together make an excellent route for the fire to chase, and there's plenty of broken glass and rubble to go with a sonic boom overhead. The faster-thinking personnel send shots into the sky, at least those not ripped apart by the heavy machine guns atop the fab four armoured personnel carriers. To say nothing of the mobile anti-aircraft batteries or the assassins prowling the streets to seek their quarry.   
  
It takes a very sharp eye indeed to notice one of the jets banking hard to most likely avoid a violation of Israeli airspace about 150 kilometers away. Or the pilot's coming back around to take more shots while his buddies strafe the sea.   
  
Bucky sees the world melt. He knew that joining SHIELD wouldn't be the same as working for the Soviets. That he might meet heroes, walk among legends. That magic and myth would be part of the equation. He saw a bit of that, moments ago. What Wanda does is far too real, far too alien, to be anything but magic, to be anything but the transfiguration of the woven fabric of existence. Buddha taught that existence is a gossamer, a figment, sprung from the ego and crafted to deceive. And now the proof of that truth shimmers before his eyes, promising to take him forward into an unknown hell.   
  
"Fuck," mutters the Winter Soldier.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sexpionage portion of the story begins after chapter seven, if you're looking for passionate trysts to go with your action.


	2. Recovery Mission

Flickering sparks dance on the air, cherry red filaments of energy rolling around the tawny-skinned young woman in the middle of a hole in space. Behind her SHIELD’s comms office winked into brief, colourless relief, all dull green metal and institutional grey. Wanda takes a deep breath and collapses the passage, taking cover against one of the pockmarked walls choking the tangled street where they stand. 

“We cannot stay in the open.” She waves the others to cover. Few of those apartments are taller than five stories, but they offer barriers from unseen snipers in the smoke-filled air.

This is just ten thousand kinds of weird. But war is war, and war is what Bucky knows. So that odd, icy calm that can't wholly be attributed to the Winter Soldier descends on him. He no longer looks dismayed or grim or anything at all. Only the blue eyes are alive with calculation, taking in what he knows of what assets they have. Turning to Coulson again he says, "Primary objective is finding the agent in place and removing him via the teleporter, right? Failing that..." He trails off in what passes for delicacy. Failing that and cyanide, Sill may end up his most recent SHIELD victim.   
  
Mouth ajar, Coulson rubs at his eyes once the cacophony of transit fades into the lesser hell that is Bourj Hammoud. His chest rises and falls with a quickened pace, for no one who's never experienced such form of travel could truly be ready for it. It takes him a few moments to steady himself, not to mention the spinning of his head, but the blazing fire not far from them is first to draw his eye. "Everyone sound off!" he calls out, instructing those who came from the Triskelion ti sound off their presence.   
  
Turning to Bucky, he answers, "That's right. We need to find a staging area, get away from his fire. Then we can split up. Bucky, Fitz, keep track of those supplies 'til we get there!"   


So much for their vacation. “This ain’t no Club Med, Coulson. Next time, you take me somewhere nice I can get a margarita in a coconut on the beach,” Clint mutters. He goes back to the wall and immediately starts scanning the upper floors surrounding the group for signs of movement or hostiles. 

Once they've found a good staging area, they'll be able to disperse radios, and can split up. "First rule," he says to Melinda, "find is a good staging area. We can use it as an evac point."   
  
Fitz can't help but duck at the sound of the first explosion being so close by. He really wasn't expecting to land in the middle of a combat zone. He should have been; he was listening to the radio along with the others but he didn't think Wanda put them down smack dab in the middle of it all. 

"Holy shit!" he yelps and drops the duffle of SHIELD field goodies. It's pretty much an instinctive response. Oh bother. "What?" he asks Coulson, then glances down and picks up the bag. "Oh, sorry. She’s right, we can’t just stay here!"   
  
Staying in the open runs the risk of being choked by burning oil clouds, flaming buildings, or any number of other hazards. The cracking boom of a plane reaching high velocities rattles overhead, while another cuts in from an easterly trajectory to drop its payload on the port. Unfortunately dropping bombs isn't exactly accurate when one's strafing the coastline and avoiding the anti-aircraft guns mounted in oddly strategic spots around the bay. Crackling retorts explode, most of them too late. None stop the missiles shot on the run nor the incendiaries tumbling down just south of the warehouse where a multitude of SHIELD agents admire their ability to cross the globe quickly.   
  
Civilians being herded, or fleeing after the herd, largely retreat to the concrete-reinforced facility with the most size in the vicinity, maybe some kind of warehouse. A few men help them in, though one or two unceremoniously drag out some individuals to one of the armored-personnel carriers stationed in the street. Almost everyone's dressed in similar dull green and brown clothes, even the thirty Soviet soldiers roaming around. They are identically armed, nearly of a height, like some Hollywood director cast them for uniform size. Suspiciously quiet, they move efficiency at total odds with the panicked locals in their bright clothes.   
  
Several more civilians are cowering against the wall at the nearer, low building currently aflame . With visibility absolutely atrocious, it's hard for anyone to see past ten feet tops.   
  
Melinda decides to focus on the individuals harassing the civilians. She isn't likely to pick up a machine gun or a rocket launcher, but pulls the gun from a holster at her side. The chaos and suddenness might have jarred her at first but, after all, life is a sudden thing, an intake of breath, a sharp thorn in the side when you least expect it. Much like the foot she intends to put in the face of some very ill-behaved enemies in short order. "I will attempt to help the civilians. But there is a plane coming from the east, American by the markings," she says to Coulson's cry for order, her dark eyes sharp as a hawk as they sweep towards the horizon.

Fitz stares at her, fitting on his goggles. “How do you know these things?”

“She pays attention,” Clint fires back. “Listen to the engine, you’ll recognize them. Let me worry about the aircraft, will you? I’ll take the rooftops. The rest of you, listen to Phil.”    
  
Bombs are no bombs, people are in harm's way and Melinda is going to help. And if the wheel of dharma puts a Bucky into her way, so be it.   
  
Jesus H Christ, there they are. Clones or decoys or Skrulls who just liked his face. It's like discovering he's got some weird family of his own, more than two dozen twin brothers. That calm facade is cracked in shock, and then Buck's rummaging in the bag of tricks to find a little bit of cord to tie and knot his hair back with. There's no time for an impromptu haircut to make him match his brethren, but if he can pass for at least an instant or two after stealing someone's fatigues…not to mention actual weaponry. "Once we've got a staging area, I can pass for one of the soldiers, if I can find one." Smoke and fire make for perfect concealment. Melinda clearly knows how to handle herself in a fight. "Up for helping me?" he asks, even as his own gaze is trying to keep track of their immediate environment. Clint gets a thumbs up -- encouragement, though Coulson's the one giving the actual orders.   
  
Wanda blinks at the building currently wreathed in flames near the mundanes being escorted away. She concentrates as she raises her hands, sparkling motes of red light forming around her. Her lips flatten to her teeth in a grimace. Orange and golden sparks in the windows retract into the smoldering interior, stifled with each passing second.

Clint glances up towards the sky, shouting back over his shoulder, "Guys, incoming pretty damn fast! Get to cover if you can!”    
  
The warning from a blonde man doesn't really register with a few shellshocked survivors of the first bombing run. They are lucky to even sit up or hold their guts in. Cinders fly on the air while one of the sheltering civilians in plainclothes -- green jacket, brown ensemble -- wordlessly pulls a semi-automatic pistol to fire at Clint.   
  
Agent Coulson darts his head eastward, toward the port. A moment passes, enough for Melinda to make his report. 

"Move out!" he shouts, and immediately begins running after Melinda, trusting the others will follow suit. This leads them toward building . Coulson grimaces at the sounds in the air, sounds he knows well; sounds that remind him of the Pacific so many years ago. "Barnes," he calls, and reaches out to snatch the duffle from the Winter Soldier, freeing him up to fight, rather than worry about their gear.   
  
Not more than a moment later, he hears something on the air, and dives for cover behind a shelled out vehicle.   
  
Fitz doesn't have a camera around his neck but he's clearly overwhelmed, breathing in smoke and hustling in Melinda and Coulson’s wake. It's his first combat zone of this scale and he's just trying to take it all in. He might not be concerned about anything heading their way beyond the obvious -- Soviet soldiers akin to Bucky in appearance, men with knives and guns. That is, until he spots the plane. Then he swears and kicks up into a run.

  
In the port, manic activity convulses those teams of workers barely into the morning shift. It's only 0900 local time. Labourers race two or three at a time with crates and boxes, overseen by stone-faced men who speak orders rather than bark them. The chain forming to a series of motorboats on the congested inland water way hurries the process along, and they largely ignore the fires raging along the oil drums and docks where larger oceangoing ships moor. Every couple of minutes, one of the rickety small craft roar off. Half as many go south as north, using the cover of the docks to make a run for the coast. Most of the boxes have no kind of labels on them. Their size varies from breadbox to coffin.   
  
He was never in the Pacific, not in that war, anyhow. But the warning from Melinda and Coulson is enough to have Bucky finding cover as best he can. Only once it seems to have passed does he prairie-dog up again -- trying to see if he can find one of the enemy downed to deal with. C'mon. Someone out there among the fallen has to have a weapon he can grab, clothes he can steal. The missile, however, has him diverted for a moment. "I think we just lost Sill," he observes to Coulson, even as he scans for opportunities. He's out here with no weapon other than that arm, and it feels awful. "Can you raise him?" he asks Agent Coulson. He’s the HMFIC -- the head motherf****r in charge.

In Bourj Hammoud, there's no sign of where Agent Sill may be holed up. He never provided exact details and the SHIELD tech teams couldn't triangulate better. It won't matter, though, as one of those missiles rockets into the ground and detonates, leaving a crater where a number of flimsy buildings once stood. Firebombed Tokyo or Dresden aren't a little unlike this place, in miniature. Flames roar into the air. The other Soviets around flinch or react with great speed, dropping to the ground or darting out of the way, disappearing into the hovels and running out the other side. Everyone scatters where they can.   
  
Even while the explosion rattles the area, Coulson is fishing through the duffle bag. He comes out with a radio and a blast vest, the latter of which is quickly strung over his shoulder one handed, while the other brings the radio to life. He quickly keys in the frequency bands that were memorized back in New York. No longer does he grimace, but now, he carries the expression of a man who has, in fact, seen battle.   
  
He's trusting the others to battle for now, instead choosing to observe what he can of the surroundings from behind cover. Peering out from the bombed vehicle, he calls over to Bucky. "Trying," he says, and shrugs the other shoulder into that blast vest while pinging out over the frequency ranges. "Coulson, raising Boxer. Boxer, do you copy, over?"   
  
"Whoa, Barton, look out. Someone on your six!" Fitz tells Clint as he moves quickly for cover. Probably. He cannot get a clear shot with the gun through the haze and flickering silhouettes above them. He tucks himself against the wall and aims straight ahead at another of those soldiers, squaring his shoulders up. Much better than a boring night of analysis in the comms room, getting a clear trajectory and firing.   
  
Clint looses an explosive-tipped arrow of his. The blast knocks back his assailant, gun flying from his hand. When the goggles are punched away, his face almost perfectly resembles the Winter Soldier’s, confirming for any looking that way the truth of Agent Sill’s commentary. The Russian goes bouncing down the road. Though staying there for long? He'd better have gauged properly.   
  
A diminished crowd flees into the largest concrete lab. Debris litters the front yard, and six to nine people covering their heads run for the APCs parked close by. They're escorted or in twos and threes, stumbling as they're dragged effortlessly by the arm to relative safety. Bucky, and to some degree Coulson, are far too likely to see the military efficiency in their evacuation.   
  
Not far beyond, Katyusha rocket launchers crawl along and take aim at the skies, their drivers scanning through the smoke for any signs of action for a retaliatory strike.   
  
The workers in the port keep the assembly lines moving, even through the shouting. Another boat's off and headed around the northern front. The southern route between the mainland and the greater port of Beirut is getting too congested and smoky, but the faster craft cut foaming wakes in the turbid blue-green sea.   
  
No signs of any missiles but those F14s and other planes move at great speed and it's only a matter of time until they or their buddies show up. Melinda and Fitz have some ease moving through without being overwhelmed on the ground, smoke and cinders everywhere, but it's still stinking, hot, and chaotic.   
  
It's a mark of the callousness that the Russians succeeded in inculcating that Bucky does nothing at all to check the status of the man Clint just knocked down for him -- the pistol's the target. Just so long as the guy doesn't try to fight him. The Soldier snags the pistol as swiftly as he can, before returning to Coulson's side. "If we don't raise Sill, Agent, what's the objective? Withdrawal?" he asks, tone almost conversational. Even that little sortie's enough to have him begrimed with smoke. "Or do we recce and see what those fuckers are up to?" The light in his eyes should be enough to make Coulson wary, the glow of what looks distinctly like pleasure, let alone the automatic in his right hand and the lack of distance between him and that set of apparent clones. He could, if the Winter programming takes over, run for their ranks. Or if there's someone handy who knows the right words.   
  
Melinda's contribution has been largely silent, much as she'd prefer it, usually. She moves with alacrity and precision, choosing his targets and breaking them quickly -- a blow here, a strike to a nerve cluster, a sudden disarmament. Such things are usually done in shadows with the element of surprise. That she does it while looking his opponents in the eyes is a simple testament to her skill. The blows they deliver will leave bruises and the rime of dust stains her black costume, but she leaves openings for Fitz to act upon. When she is satisfied with her engaging at least one of the soldiers, she intends to make it her purpose to capture one of the duplicates alive.   
  
Looking to Fitz, Coulson breathes a sigh of relief, and his eyebrows flash upward. "Glad to have you with me, in any case," he answers. Going back to the radio, he makes attempts again. "Repeat, Coulson to Boxer, do you copy?"   
  
He lowers the radio, about to resign, when suddenly it sparks to life.

* * *

  
"*PSSSHHHT* hell have you b*CRRRK*, Coulson? Why the fuck aaaaaaazzzRRRT icans bomb—- *PSSHT* me the fuck out of here!"   
  
Coulson lifts the radio again, eyes wide. "Boxer!"   
  
"A — nn tell me about that fucking pill!"   
  
"Copy that, we're coming to you."   
  
"Well hurry the fuck *PSSHT*"   
  


* * *

"Keep your line open, I'll triangulate!"   
  
Coulson dives into the duffle bag again, eyes glancing from Fitz to Bucky. "Barnes." He produces a small tracking device. "Those clones of yours? Get this onto one of them." Next, he produces a small attachment which gets plugged into the ass end of the radio; thank goodness for high tech SHIELD R&D. It's a device designed to triangulate a signal, using sonar-like beeps that quicken in pace as the radio moves closer to the source signal.   
  
"Swear to God, Coulson," the radio squawks. "* _ PSSHZHT _ * smoke everywhere. Building's on f* _ PSSHT _ *"   
  
"Copy, Boxer," Coulson reports into the radio, gesturing sharply to the others. "You guys, with me." He points toward the group of buildings that have begun to burn , then moves from cover and starts running, head low, toward those buildings. The radio beeps and chirps as he goes; he'll rely on its pace to determine whether he's getting warmer or colder.   
  
Fitz nods at Coulson's instructions, hanging back a bit to cover their flank and also to keep an eye on what's around them. As he moves, he picks up a few fists sized pieces of rubble to use as projectiles. "Holler if you see anything." he tells Clint.   
  
Soviet operatives, all men, proceed with forcible evacuations. They do not engage with random citizens beyond shoving them out of the way or tossing them into the sea close to the docks. Two dozen give or take operate in the smoky, bombed-out town. One is stunned on the ground, and two more threatened by Clint retreat strategically from his arrows. One may have disappeared through a door when Melinda tapped him in the neck and elsewhere, revealing a glint of metal. Don't ask about that stunned man in the corner. The upsetting part? Their eyes are cold and focused, without remorse, even when convulsed in pain.   
  
Subsequent bursts have a risk, given the escorts for the civilians from the lab facility literally hold onto them. At least one of those civilians becomes a shield, taking a beam through the chest. A rattle of twin heavy machine guns from the APC turns on Clintand retorts loudly and noisily, firing wide. Stray bullets bounce off the walls above Fitz, the SHIELD agent close to being winged. From Clint’s vantage, he can see plainly none of the super-soldiers are engaging directly.   
  
Just the permission he's waiting for. A little salute from Bucky, and he's vanishing off into the smoke to find one of his unfortunate brothers. Which one was foolish enough to take up position out of sight and sound of the main mass of the…..herd? pack? flock? whatever the collective noun for a group of Barneses and leave himself vulnerable to attack. These pups can't have the sheer experience of the original, no matter how hard they've been trained.

Russian is heard briefly squawking from speakers at the lab and the facilities, and a few other intact buildings clustered nearby at the heart of Bourj Hammoud. Two words, bleated back to back.   
  
_ "Longing." _ _  
_

_ "Rusted." _   
  
Then there are those words, echoing around the inside of his skull like a ricocheting bullet, and Bucky stiffens. There's a spike of sheer panic, like being stabbed with an icicle, and his heart all but seizes. Then he's on the radio with Coulson, or at least, there's an attempt to. "Coulson, Barnes. I'm about to be compromised. Assume I'm a hostile from now on. Over." He's got a brief span of seconds before that programming kicks in, enough to go for the nearest false-Winter Soldier, not scorning the element of surprise. He pounces on the unfortunate replica, trying to land the tracker before his brain more or less shuts off.   
  
Melinda is focused on her own personal battle with one of the duplicates. Separating Bucky's errant clone from the herd, Melinda must use her focus to its utmost. The cybernetic element provides an additional challenge, along with the programming, robbing the Soldiers of the traditional nervous system responses. Their training is so soulless and artificial that it actually disgusts her, like watching a beautiful butterfly reduced to a husk, an undead wretch that mimics beauty with none of its meaning. She pays a price for the battle, too, in bruised ribs and a slash across the side of his neck, like to leave a scar. But she'll keep fighting, flesh against steel, her grim focus cutting out the rest of the world.   
  
Coulson flinches when one of those bullets comes too close for comfort, before flicking off the wall and into the dirt. No telling where Clint and even Wanda are up there in the chaos, while the heart of the conflict pulls him in. He follows the tracking device with accuracy, adjusting his movements with even the smallest change in chirping pace. The squawking of those loudspeakers furrows his brow; he's fluent in Russian, of course, and the words make no sense. At least, until Bucky's report. He slows for a moment, eyes going wide. "Oh no." The radio is whipped up to his face and clicked to life. 

"Barton! Knock out those damn speakers, fast!" 

Up comes his bow, and Clint takes aim at one of those loudspeakers, barely visible through the smoke and debris. Exhale, squeeze the trigger. Regardless of whether his shot is true, he's quick to take off again. "Clear!" he calls to Fitz, and resumes his pace toward the ultimate target, wherever that honing device is leading them. The blond archer shares the same patch and builds up his momentum.   
  
Fitz launches into action, his gun pointed at the ground. He tries to wrestle Bucky upright, the metal arm far heavier than he was given to believe. Grunting, he lifts the man and retreats back to the cover of the wall. Boots drag and pull over the rubble.    
  
He's done what he can, verbally. Coulson and the rest of the SHIELD team knows. Which is why it's okay if he screams now, right? Bucky's fighting, surrounded by those men in plain clothes, deft, efficient, brutal and outnumbered. There's only the one mag for the pistol, and it's swiftly emptied, leaving it a blunt trauma weapon to pistol-whip his opponents with.   
  
What a puzzle he has to be -- did one of the faux Buckies have a breakdown? Or how did the original get here?   
  
But he is screaming like an animal in a trap. Not orders, requests, or pleas, but sheer incoherent rage. He can feel the words settling on him like weights, bearing down, starting to obliterate all that hard-won independence of mind.

One of the APCs not shooting at Bucky and the SHIELD company careens off, having obtained one passenger of any value. Inside a scientist slumps to the floor and clutches his head, shaking uncontrollably. Overhead, three streaking shapes race along the coast, dropping another pair of missiles at the port.   
__  
_ "Furnace." _   
  
The pilots are drawn no doubt by the hive of maritime activity. The damage left by the fighter planes bombing the coastline has substantially slowed escape, and boats unable to get far from the docks are sitting ducks. Sailors toss the contents overboard, boxes consigned to the gods of the sea.   
__  
_ "Daybreak." _ __  
  
Gunshots don't do much to metal, but they can interrupt a speaker rattling its dispatch or garble the output. Clint and Coulson keep firing at any speaker they can find, arrows and small arms fire a steady retort.

Brilliant violence erupts where offered, by anyone the Soviet operatives can reach. At that point, whether it's a civilian in the way or Melinda actively hunting them, they're motivated to take down anyone standing between them and the three-story lab. The super-soldiers with gloved hands and plainclothes break into brutal, efficient punches, kicks, and blocks. Krav maga informs those fluid blows as much as boxing or taekwondo. And, all the more alarmingly, where they can, they converge in pairs that needle defenses, lashing out. Programming for the Winter Soldier goose is good for his ganders.   
  
_ "Seventeen. Benign." _   
  
The tracer guides them around the concrete lab where, ironically, the thickest concentration of fake Winter Soldier clones are. How to tell one from another? A speaker explodes. Is that a radio shoved up to a window? Another on its side but still operating? It is. How many of those are embedded around Bourj Hammoud? 

“Fitz! Get back, he’s a helluva lot stronger than you think!” Clint drops down from a balcony partly demolished by the civil war, by some unfortunate missile. Landing heavily, he darts at a run towards the scientist dealing with the original Winter Soldier shaking and fighting off the conditioning. Not that he has remotely the same kind of strength, but the stunning gun he carries is exactly for that purpose. At full charge, he collides with Bucky, knocking them both back into a small niche tucked between the buildings.

Bucky doesn’t fight this. He shakes like he's about to seize up, shielded from the sound by the cacophony around him.   
  
Melinda recognizes the only way to overcome the artificial warrior's vicious offense is to succumb to it. She takes a blow from a powerful fist sacrificing her own body to capture the limb. Shee falls back with the force of it, dragging her opponent on top of him. Limbs bend and grapevine, trapping that arm and grinding Melinda's shin into the man's throat as she slips into a triangle choke. Applied properly, Melinda can black out an ordinary man this way in less than ten seconds, a cluster of nerves around the windpipe shutting down the brain in self-defense. This enemy may be more resistant to such methods, however. But the agent is nothing if not persistent.   
  
Back at it, Coulson comes draws up near the warehouse, looking around for a generator, something exposed he can knock free. The tracking device on his radio is beeping rapidly; Sill should be around here somewhere. He lifts the radio and calls, "Coulson to Boxer, come in?"   
  
That's when he sees the radios propped up against a window. He blinks, and notices another on the ground, then another, and another… His expression turns dark and he stops looking. "Shit. They've got him."   
  
Here's hoping the agent had the cojones to eat that pill.

Clint isn't taking any chances, not with the questionably sane content he is entrusted with. His focus right now is on making sure Bucky doesn't lose himself again as he says, "I've got you James! You're not going to lose yourself again." He keeps an arm tightly twisted around the soldier’s chest, staggering against the wall. He barks over the com to Coulson, "Bucky secured, repeat Bucky secured, but I'm out right now!"   
  
To the immediate southwest, black smoke bubbles on the horizon in even greater quantity than in Bourj Hammoud. The city of Beirut is an inferno along the waterfront.   
  
Shots fired by Coulson kill one or two speakers. In the end, it’s the fires and the salvos from rocket fire on the ground that stifle the chanting Russian broadcast. The power cuts take their toll. Lights go out. The battered infrastructure isn't up to a surge at the best of times. Loudspeakers go out, and whatever broadcasts to the radios littered all over mostly end.   
  
"Nay…"   
  
Pinned down civilians and PLO soldiers -- not only the Soviets -- take their chances. Maybe a few slip into the water or crawl overland to shelter by rubble. Those left to fight do so with ferocious brutality, giving not one shit about life. If they can break a neck, they will. Those pulled back to the other vehicles that function in any capacity are devoted to exfil.   
  
Bucky is unashamedly clinging to Clint like a baby monkey. That was too close a call. "We've got to get back to Coulson," he tells her, urgently. "And get the fuck out of here. We're outnumbered. And we've gotta get one of those clones or whatever they are."   
  
Ask and ye shall receive.   
  
Melinda emerges from the chaos, sweaty and bloodied. Over one of her shoulders, the unconscious carcass of one of Bucky's errant alternate selves. He's a heavy SOB and, conditioned as Melinda is, the agent is already tired of carrying him. She reaches Coulson with a grim look on her face. This didn't go as well as planned - but, then, there wasn't a great deal of planning either. "We should go," she says simply.   
  
"We're in the thick of it now." Coulson reloads his gun and pauses to issue a command through the comms. “Barton is leaving the theatre with Barnes in tow. Everyone back to Maximoff. That's it, evac time. Melinda!"   
  
He ducks out from cover as Melinda shows up with one clone in tow. It’s enough to draw a smirk to his face, and he exchanges the gun for the stun pistol holstered in his jacket. The cartridge warms up to his thumbprint. He swings it up to the ready, the six seconds for the lock to release an agonizing wait. Finding a mark moving on the clone, he does what any trained SHIELD agent will do in a hot combat situation; he aims for the chest, squeezes the trigger, then bumps it up a notch to send a pulsation of energy toward the temple. They call this the 'one, two' in training, and it's designed to be quick and effective -- neutralizing the target for transport. Following this, he begins backing up toward the wall of that building, hoping it will provide some cover.

The Asian agent grits her teeth. “Next time, why don’t you shoot  _ that _ first instead of letting me bring him down?” 

“No telling it would work.” Coulson grimaces.  “Barton," he says on the radio, "we're at the tall building, south corner. Warn Maximoff. Thirty seconds and we're jumping out of here. Translation: open that door, we’re out.."   
  
Clint signals to Fitz. “Come on, help me handle him. He’s heavy.” Between the two of them, they manage to help Bucky to his feet, though the soldier is in little condition to protest, still dazed and exhausted by the ordeal. Melinda and Coulson approach with the other unconscious Soviet at a jog, shrouded in rolling clouds of dust and smoke.

“Wanda!” the archer hisses. She has to be around there somewhere.

Her name is sufficient as a summons, given her job watching and waiting as the transportation. The witch pushes through the fatigue and spins the resolving portal in front of trio. Radiant sparks collapse inwards on a sheet of glowing red light, and the evacuation point resolves into a familiar sight.   
  
It's the Triskelion. An interrogation room, in fact. She gestures at the oscillating portal. “Get through.”    
  
The agents head through, Fitz first and then Barton with Bucky between them. Melinda comes staggering up behind, Coulson giving coverage from any possible militants rushing their way. An armoured personnel carrier swings around just in time for him to grab Wanda by the arm and push her through. 

When the portal snaps shut, they all press close within the bare chamber. Fitz heads for the door and tries the handle, but the lock clearly is engaged. From the outside, no less. He groans and puts his forehead to the industrial grey wall. “Bother.”   
Because it's presently afterhours for most of the Triskelion staff, they might not even realize Coulson left. Get Tony Stark on those sensors for impending breaches.   
  
Bucky detaches himself from Clint and turning to look at the other non-Bucky they've captured. He's grimy and stinks of chemical smoke and fear sweat, but he can't resist coming closer to examine him.   
  
Agent Coulson's suit was already dirty and torn, so this isn't much of anything, but some of the grime is kicked up onto his face, and the sheer force of it blows what little hair he has about. He holsters the tasing gun, taking a moment to clear his head and stands up. He smoothes the suit jacket down with both hands, then takes stock of everyone with them. Even though they lost Sill, he's happy at least that they all came back, and in one piece. Especially Bucky. Well, the real Bucky.   
  
He finally looks to the agents and quips, "You messed up my hair."   
  
Wanda looks back at Phil, and says simply, "You said you were in a hurry." 


	3. Interrogation I: Matvei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thought he had a clone. Bucky discovers how complicated the situation really is.

The Triskelion has sublevels, then there are sub-sublevels; those places designed to be utilized when the utmost secrecy and security are required. This is where  _ Bucky Beta _ , as Phil Coulson so eloquently penned him, is being caged.   
  
For this exercise, the Senior Agent has put on field gear, including the armored bodysuit and rifle. He stands outside the room with Bucky by his side, looking through the two way mirror with a pensive expression.   
  
"Remarkable, isn't it?" he asks.   
  
Bucky has been antsy to really see this apparent replica face to face, no matter what he really turns out to be. And now he is agog, staring through the glass at the other Bucky. It's his nightmare, to know that his suffering won't end with him, but continues on in other bodies in cold rooms. An infinite series of reflections, like a candle flame caught between two mirrors: sons he never sired, or twins he didn't share a womb with.   
  
He is not armored, himself. He's just still in his SHIELD-standard jumpsuit, with worn sneakers on his feet, not his accustomed steel toes. "It's insane," he says, flatly. "I can't understand why me. Why not some Spetsnaz superman? Some mutant hybrid. The only thing remarkable about me was HYDRA trying out its super serum on me during the war, and even that didn't have me turning out like Steve."   
  
An oddity: not all those Buckies are exactly Bucky. There are differences if one knows how to look deeper than the surface. Errors in eye shape or colour, the crop of the hair and of course the build. None of them precisely match him down to the last detail, but proximity is a necessity to determine one calling card from another.   
  
Yet only with ease can this one be deciphered. The nose is longer, the jaw sharper. Of course the difference in hair length is there, and the frosty, empty stare of a man condemned to death and just not insane. Calm, cold, there is nothing to return a word, a name, a look. That's true for their captives. They just don't respond, shut down by the grueling regimen of whatever made them. Whatever did this.   
  
"It's also remarkably unfair," Coulson answers. "For both of you." It is but a moment of empathy, for there is a job to be done.   
  
Coulson's demeanor becomes less soft, a touch less friendly. Not to Bucky, but to the situation in general. "It was HYDRA, looking for an advantage. Something they could use to balance power. It is our job to make sure that balance becomes… unbalanced. To assure these clones aren't able to do what they were made to do." He casts a look to Bucky. "You ready?"   
  
After a moment, Coulson opens the door. Bucky Beta has been restrained, of course; the same design used to restrain Bucky Prime, in fact. He steps in and allows James to follow. "You have a visitor," he tells the prisoner.   
  
"Yeah," says James himself, still flat, though he han't lapsed into that brooding grimness that shows up from time to time. "On all counts." Then the Winter Soldier steps in behind Coulson, and then to the side -- not going to hide behind the agent. He situates himself in the other Soldier's field of vision, looking into his face calmly, waiting to see what the prisoner's reaction might be. In that flawless eastern Russian, complete with a trace of a Vladivostok accent, he asks, softly, «Hey. Do you understand English?»   
  
The brooding figure merely stares out, grim and unremarkably focused on whatever vicissitudes fascinate him. The faux Bucky leans back slightly and stares past Coulson when the door opens. Restraint doesn't give him much choice about what he does. Wall himself off is about it. Bucky's arrival alongside him hardly causes shock. Why would it when he spent the better part of an hour in good company of his literal cousins and twins or clones?   
  
"«Why?»" The question in Russian is completely neutral as they come. Tone devoid, the neutral grind is akin to James himself. That isn't so entirely different. "«No.»"   
  
Coulson folds his arms, now allowing James to take the show in his hand. He's merely the observer for this movement, silently observing every detail he can dredge from Fauxcky's responses. The young needs a better name than Bucky Beta or Fauxcky, but that’s not really his problem yet.   
  
«Some of us do,» Bucky replies easily. Coulson surely catches the pronoun. 'Us,' not 'you'. «What are you called?» In contrast to his kinsman's studied neutrality, the blue eyes are bright, for all his attempts to keep his body language just as easy. «Do you know who I am?»   
  
The man gives a slight tip of his head. No smile rests on those features uncannily like Bucky's own. The Bucky beta doesn't look like he'll ever laugh at the outcome of a Yankees game or stroll down Coney Island, admiring the lights. He is the byproduct of a torture chamber and a rigorous regimen meant to strip someone down. The response is an abbreviated shrug considering the position. "«You.»"   
  
There's something awful in the temptation to immediately reach for that string of words, the one that might make this one yield as easily as he always does. But it's there. There's a pre-arranged signal for Coulson -- two in fact. One hand gesture for the phrase that makes the Soldiers go into that pliant standby mode, ready for whatever directive. And another to use the one that shuts them down into unconsciousness.   
  
James sits back a little, himself. He's not a trained interrogator. Not like this, anyway. «What's your name? What's your designation?»   
  
There shan't be anything remotely akin to hope for them. He stares back with those pitiless eyes cast in a pallor of long-sighted misery. Bucky versus his icon is not bound to get terribly much reaction. "«None.»" That's got to be terrible. He's not even distinguished as a person, a thing. Is he even that much? "«You. Why do you do this?»"   
  
Even the AKs racked in the bases have individual serial numbers. «Not even a serial number? How do you know when you're being given orders to, as opposed to another individual? Or does only the group have a name? All the men who look like you, that you were fighting alongside… What are you called?» A hint of frustration creeping in; Bucky didn't expect teary-eyed welcome and open arms, but this?

 

Foolishly, of course, he yields to the temptation to reach out and touch, laying his hand along the prisoner's jaw. No force, he's not trying to make this --  _ clone? Brother?  _ \-- look in any particular direction.   
  
"«You.»" The other Soviet repeats itself quite clearly. "«I am you. We are called when you are?»" He isn't smiling darkly in the night or mocking with laughter in his eyes. He simply remains frozen in place without the means to much escape a disturbing coil of events. That Bucky reaches out to touch him, so like doing it himself, leaves a rather incurious expression. He stares back, puzzled. "«You are here. You did not finish the mission. I did not finish the mission. We failed.»"   
  
When Bucky moves forward to take his counterpart by the jaw, Coulson displays just how cool-headed he can be. Inside, he's tensing. Outside, his fingers remain still, eyes unchanged; the pace of his breath is not quickened.   
  
"«No,»" Coulson interjects, his Russian clearly not natural but well practiced. "«We won.»" He's curious to see what a low dose of humiliation might prompt, before ramping it up at all.   
  
With his metal hand, he touches the breast of his jumpsuit. «I'm James. James Barnes. I was born in Brooklyn in the United States of America in 1917. Yes, I failed the mission I was sent here to do. I did not eliminate Steven Rogers. I no longer fight for the Soviet Union. You are a replica or descendant of mine, you and all the men like you.» He bites his tongue. «Report. What mission were you on when you were captured?» There's no 'good cop, bad cop' if your interrogation's subject doesn't give a damn what happens to him. Right now he doesn't even have the capacity to worry about himself, because as far as he's concerned, there is no 'self.' 

 

Bucky shoots Coulson a look, and for a moment, the expression of puzzlement is eerily identical, if sharper than that of the pale prisoner beside him.   
  
"«Leave.»" The soldier uncannily similar in nature to James, minus the actual metal arm, looks puzzled. "«To leave. Go. The objective failed. All those capable of doing so were ordered to leave. Americans burn everything. Nothing to be had. You lost. We lost.»" His gaze flicks briefly to Coulson, and if there's any confirmation there, he does not really seem to recognize the man.   
  
"They must be programmed to follow a specific set of instructions, and just that," Coulson remarks. "Nothing more. Somehow, the trigger words… it must not be all there is."   
  
Bucky steps forward then, eyes glimmering with something dangerous. "«You failed,»" he resumes in Russian. "«You failed the mission, and you failed to leave. We have you now, and we are the enemy. What happens next is that we will break you. You will no longer be who or what you are. A tool, nothing more; to be discarded when it's blade becomes dull and worthless.»"   
  
Maybe it's programming, even fragmented and buried. Maybe it's a deeper instinct -- recognition of nearly identical DNA. But it's very clear, by the way Bucky lets his hand fall from the other Soldier's face and turns fully to look at Coulson, that there's already some kind of loyalty there. Imprinting, perhaps. Because it's almost combative, that posture. Some part of James's psyche has decided that this particular little automaton fills the 'kid brother' slot once occupied by Steven Rogers. Mine, says the expression, mine.   
  
But he doesn't argue with Coulson. It's the truth. The programming will be broken, by hook or by crook. What they'll be left with -- God willing, they can get a functional person out of this. "It sounds," he says, slowly, "Like that, yeah. I mean, he doesn't even seem to understand that he's an individual. They're not telepathic, I'm guessing. But how do you give specific orders when you don't even have a number?"   
  
Those hang-dog eyes turn from Bucky to Coulson. They hold even less concern for their status than some might. Take the metal from the ore vein, hammer and refine it, and decide to give it a matte finish, the object will always have that finish. Even through hard use, it's not going to sparkle. No smile follows Coulson's admissions and threats. James has not fully turned his near doppelganger to begging. Could such a fate even be in their makeup?   
  
"«What do they do with you when you fail? Remember that.»" The tone isn't particularly cruel.   
  
"I don't have an answer for that, James," answers Coulson. His tone remains harsh, though it's not directed at Bucky himself; more so, it's an effort at maintaining the act. To remain convincing. "«I don't fail,»" he then tells the Soviet operative. "«I want you to tell us just how they use you. I want to understand how they give you directions. If not, we will…»" He casts a glance briefly toward James, then back to his not-so-much-brother. "«Unlock it from within you.»"   
  
«Not what you think,» Buck retorts, instantly. «They could've killed me any time in the last months. Yet here I am. Americans? We're different. It's not like that. You'll be free. You've spent all your life in chains, little brother, but we're going to break them.» He puts a hand on the other Soldier's shoulder, squeezes it gently. «Tell him.»   
  
The dark figure doesn't ever try to smile in response to them. He listens, as it's not as though they leave him any other choice. The soldier stretches against the bonds holding him, trying to keep his muscles from seizing up under the heavy green and brown garb he wore into the field. It's a limited effort, movements tested more than anything, for his discomfort is a reasonably messed up situation he can endure for a while. "«What difference does it make to comply?»" Reasonable question, isn't it? "«I do what you want. You take it anyways. You torture me and unlock it.»" He puzzles over the situation for a few moments; there's no absence of purpose in his thought processes, slowed though they are. "«Forgive me, but we have no promises of anything. You say 'free' and you say you will 'break' our parents. What kind of man am I if I submit to this? There are no promises here. You can say any of these things. They treated you well. They did not kill you. They did not; they have not; they won't. What good are these words? They can offer them and discard me in a moment. What is to say they are not preparing the injections or bullets even now? You see our predicament. This… promise… This offer. I betray everything and what does this leave us? What does it make us?»"   
  
Coulson's jaw remains squared, his shoulders strong, arms crossed. "«I won't mince words,»" he answers. "«We either break you and free you, or you stay like this. Locked up. Forever. Unless word of this gets to the President, and he signs an execution order. You are a war criminal, after all. It's too dangerous to let you loose until we can assure, like we have James.»" He gestures toward Bucky. "«That you won't comply with the enemy. Does that make sense to you?»"   
  
Injection. The thought makes James bristle, wolfishly, despite himself. «What does it make you? In time, free men. There's a whole world outside Siberia. There's a whole world that does not have to be your enemy. The Russians, they don't have to control you. You'll be able to make your own choices.» He rises from where he's almost crouched at the other Soldier's side, to pace, all nervous energy. «I promise it. If you try, you won't be tortured. You won't be killed. I know what you went through to become what you are. The cold and the pain and the weariness. It doesn't have to be like that.» Then something strikes him, and he turns on the Soldier again, brow furrowed. «Parents?»   
  
"«You ask me to take your word. A promise. How do I know it's true?»" He's attached to that line of thought. The young man so similar in likeness to Bucky proves even more so, when watched up close. His expression is pained slightly by thought. "«Parents? What?»"   
  
"Our parents," Coulson asides to Bucky. His gregarious demeanor falters, willingly of course, but he steps up close to James with a furrow to his brow. Concern spreads over his gaze, softening by shades as he briefly turns his face away from the soldier. A compassion too dangerous to show the beta before them. "Not brothers, parents. What on Earth…?"   
  
And that's what Buck has seized on, in turn. «Who're your parents?» He asks, slowly. «How old are you? If you don't have a name…» How fast, exactly, *did* they grow these kids? «And as for proof?» He glances at Coulson, and then he's undoing the front of the jumpsuit. Which, happily proves to have a clean white tank top beneath. No striptease. He shoves one shoulder off enough to reveal the metal plates with their crimson star, his own little waffenamt. «They found me dead in the water off the coast of Germany. They revived me, but I'd lost some of the arm in the explosion. I could've had an ordinary prosthesis, but they wanted to try out some augmentation techniques, so they cut it off at the shoulder joint and attached this. When I woke up again, my memory was gone, so they made me into the first Winter Soldier.»   
  
The Soviet soldier in their midst isn't particularly expressive. Truth told, he's probably eager to fall face-first into an uncomfortable cot, grab a few hours of sleep, and munch on flavourless bread. He could be daring and even think about a fresh change of clothes in a day or two. Instead, he's looking with those dark, matte eyes at Bucky. "«I don't know.»"   
  
"He doesn't know," murmurs Coulson. He drops his arms and steps away, reaching up to run a hand through his receding hairline with a tired expression. For a few moments, he paces around the cell, contemplating all they've learned. "Whatever they have locked up inside of him, I don't think it will come out so easily. Maybe… maybe they had more time with them --" He nods to the Soviet, "than with you. We need to get the psychologists in here."   
  
«You don't have any,» Bucky informs the other Soldier, as he tugs the jumpsuit back into place, redoes the fastenings. «More accurately, your father is George Barnes, your mother is Winifred Barnes - those were my parents. Which makes you….» He fishes for a name, «Matvei Yegorovich Barnes» Bucky spreads his hands. «Look at me. I'm obviously one of you. I'm the template, except for that stupid arm. And here I am with this crazy story. I bet none of you, none of us, have names except for me. You don't remember a childhood before the Red Room. Because they made you, you weren't born. They took what they had of me - samples, DNA and made you all.»   


The senior agent glances aside at the confession, and says quietly, “I have to clear this with the director before you start making promises.”

Bucky's all but pleading. As Coulson speaks, he says, "I was gone for eighteen years. Even if they started experimenting with me the minute they got me, they can't be that old. Given how things were back then, there must have been a lot of time before they cracked the code and made anyone.” His expression falters, brows knotted together. “They don’t look more than eighteen, twenty years old. But they don't look like kids. They look like men in their twenties. They were grown. They've probably got the absolute minimum in implanted memories just to be able to function."   
  
As that terrible revelation strikes home, Coulson gestures to the door. “Time to go. This will get priority, but we need to put you in front of Agent Fitz,” he catches himself, softening his volume even further, “and the director. Until then, I will make sure he isn’t lacking for comfort.”

The young man waits. He will wait until the second coming, hollow-eyed and implacable. Bucky looks back once more, stricken, as he is led out.


	4. Project: Matvei

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 17. SHIELD dungeon.  
> Dear Diary,
> 
> Am v. bored. Gruel awful. Capitalist pigs attempt to sway person. Not happening. Am remembering joys of E. German tumbling team and most v. faithful gun. Will be best. Impressed guards by doing 201 pushups in a row.
> 
> \- Me

Somewhere deep in the Triskelion, a solitary cell on a corridor of similarly identical cells conceals a secret. One of many, really. If the Politburo knew its contents, they would have launched a nuclear strike or spread out their dark instruments of chaos and terror ages ago.

While superpowers bare teeth and rattle their sabres at the diplomatic table, the secret world of espionage seethes with a different sort of violent intent. Spycraft hasn’t changed much in thirty years of tenure. Get something special, you keep it hidden from the enemy.

Isn’t that the truth when it comes to acquiring enemy assets? Peggy Carter maintains the highest level of security around this floor. Even the guards have clearance levels higher than seven, each one vetted from top to bottom for service. Loose lips have sunk ships before. No one can afford the failure of intelligence if word gets out, so layers on layers of protection shroud the remotest mention about a visitor, and a prisoner.

The differences otherwise are so slim, they take a microscope and mental gymnastics to really identify.

Armed guards, given some of the finest tech Stark Industries has ever produced, guard the route and point those pitiless barrels straight at the lift. Doors sweep open, slowly retracting to avoid giving someone a chance to barrel out with both guns blazing. The man who emerges doesn’t need firearms to be lethal. His kill record, at least verified through half a dozen alphabet agencies around the world, gives him a dreadful reputation.

The red star on his bicep shines as he walks into the corridor. Prominently displayed, he carries a pair of badges, one with a SHIELD call sign and rank designation, another stamped with the black eagle overlaid by a single number and letter. Peggy Carter’s personal mark stands out prominently, which allows the assassin to be in their midst without calling down all the firepower they’ve got in a 30 mile square radius.

“Name,” asks one of the guards, his scalp prickling.

“Barnes, James Buchanan.” The words trip off his tongue with a slight falter, his Brooklyn accent clean and precise. “Agent, conditional level four.”

Clearance of even that rank shouldn’t be his. They don’t ask. History is not their business and when the director of the agency makes her mind up, they listen. Any unwelcome thoughts are stored in their heads until they report to the psychologists of O Division for their regular check-in.

“Scan the cards,” says the guard.

Bucky pulls on both cards, passing them over a flat glass panel on the wall. Holographic beams leap to the fore, concentrated on a detailed if grainy image of him and biometrics data in glittering columns. He holds still as another scanner sweeps over his retina, a process he would rather avoid.

Two records crackle into visibility, and a jarring beep accompanies “Top Secret,” “Classified,” “Access Denied,” and other assorted error messages.

Peggy’s card silences the protests, but they all but hang in the air. He raises his eyebrows slightly.

The guard barely blinks, chosen as much for composure as professionalism and a spotless record. “Your ankle?”

Lifting his dark jeans slightly reveals the blinking metal bracelet around his ankle, clamped tight to his shin. The boot skims just below the thick band, no doubt rigged by explosives to go with the electrical charge he knows about. “I’m collared. Any movement out of approved areas and the zap should put me down. Try to stay out of the way of this side.”

Bucky pats his left arm, as if they need to be warned.

“Far as anyone’s concerned, you’re in there.” The second guard, more loquacious, nods at the door to the cell. One by rights Bucky Barnes ought to be in, if half the civilised world didn’t think he was dead, and the other half assuming he works for Moscow Centre.

“Understood,” he says. His approach through the gauntlet of guns and restrained, simmering intent lifts the hairs at the back of his neck, but he must do this.

\----

Things don't change much around here. The dark-haired young man's not an inactive man by any stretch of the imagination. Unless pinned down in a chair, he kickboxes, does push-ups, curl-ups, and endless rounds of jogging in his little cell. He practices squats and shadow-boxes. He pushes himself to fatigue and crashes into his bed for dreamless sleep. He is a model prisoner, at least in the sense he's incredibly boring and predictable. Routine is the function by which he breaks down the day. By which he simply is.

They haven't let him back. Not in direct contact, since that first meeting. But now here's the American one, who somehow manages to be both the original and the factory seconds. Hence the metal arm. Bucky's dressed in plain civilian clothes, this time, jeans and a t-shirt. He brings plain new clothes, simple stuff, since they're presumably just about the same size: it's currently being inspected by the guards, as if he might've hidden a file in the boxers' inseam.

What he has been cleared to bring in is chocolate. Surely that constitutes the best possible peace offering? They let him in without binding the prisoner, or insisting on any other agent in the cell, though surely they're being recorded. "Hey," he says, simply.

Whatever they have the other man wear, he wears it. Fed, he eats it. Offer… well, he doesn't read English that he knows or lets on, so books are out. It's really a guinea pig situation for the second, and the only request he ever makes is a razor to stay clean-shaven. He doesn't like beards or shaggy business. Another hour, another day. Crunches, now, one, two, thirteen. Four sets of thirteen reps, rest, begin again. The floor is fine for him. His hands bracket his ears while he stares at a fixed point that's nowhere, really. What is this peace offering they provide, this man that is him and is not? He's not exactly rude, but keeps rising up, tensing, reclining. He repeats the word almost blankly."Hey."

Seeing his own expression, his own model in a slightly younger form, gives a thrill and a sense of horror.

That wall of impassivity greets Bucky. He's deployed it to such good effect himself, and now, greeted with the new, improved version of himself, he finds himself as frustrated as any run of the mill SHIELD agent. He settles down, cross-legged, holds up the chocolate mutely. Maybe the 2.0s are trained to dislike sugar. Did they eliminate the epic sweet tooth growing up in the Depression gave him? He watches for the moment, offering nothing beyond the greeting for now.

The wall of simple blankness graces the younger man’s expression. He keeps flexing his abdominal muscles, the heat not a full burn at this point. It feels familiar, not altogether bad. His shirt ripples and curls with each movement as he leans back, scapula touching the cold floor. Up again. He looks back, those pale eyes tracking across almost his own face. Almost.

«What do you want?» Bucky asks, softly. If they're going to have this conversation with the new one working out, so be it. Anything to keep from resorting to those words, the command phrase to command attention. He could. He's got them now, his gift to use or give, a double-edged weapon fit only for those hands he trusts. Nat needs them.Steve has them already, his first and oldest friend. And now SHIELD, too, for those clever enough to find them in the records. «I know you haven't given us a name. I need to call you something. Matvei?»

What _does_ Bucky’s twin want? It's an excellent question. Want is a transitory thing, really, a culpable equation of short-term requirements and distractions. «Deodorant.» It's a reasonable request. Practical. Something to count off the options to. Ten, eleven. Twelve. Correction, plant feet slightly further apart. Up: flex. Back, exhale. «Why?»

Was Bucky this infuriating when they first recovered him, not so long ago? Surely more, for so many of his interlocutors had some memory of James Barnes, and what he used to be like. «That I can get. I'm trying to figure out what to do with you,» he says, simply. «I meant more long term. And…» Hesitation follows. «Did you ever interact with any of the women from the Widow program?»

The sweat is beading on Matvei's forehead and his cheeks are reddening, but nothing he hasn't done for fifteen days before. Routine is routine. The young man is all but identical in every aspect to Agent Barnes, but for the fainter eye colour. He'll be slow answering his prototype asking questions, but there isn't any sense of direct hostility. There simply isn't room for more than a complete, flat look devoid of a defining spark. A blink or two every few seconds passes. «No.»

Bucky sets the chocolate down, to the side, a forgotten offering. «What's your earliest memory?» This guy's no kind of talker, but at least he's not shown any direct anger or flat-out refusal, nor has he attacked.

Chocolate is something to be checked, noted. Not a weapon, not labeled with a skull and crossbones. Not a cigarette. This makes it relatively safe. Matvei nods at it. The vaguely distrustful look at Bucky's question follows. «Trees.» Well, not exciting but valid.

«Tell me about it,» Bucky requests, softly. A plea, rather than an order. «Tell me about your life.» There's a terrible, peculiar moment of loneliness. Of being the white crow in the flock, some part of his programming responding like crystal resonating to a played note. Things he should remember, experiences held in common that he doesn't have because he's James Barnes.

«Rural. Cold. The stillness of the forest.» These are not things he parts with easily, still doing his situps patiently one after the other. Matvei will rest later. Rest is when the mind fixates on the emptiness of self. «The clean air that cut. Burned, so pure. Smoke on the air. Good smells. Not like here. You put up with it. This is not your place. Why?»

«Here, this prison? No, it's not mine.» Bucky remembers it -- air so cold breathing aches, the scents of the taiga, conifers, an absence of other smells that sings, the way utter silence conjures up hallucinations of sound. «My place is Brooklyn. It's part of the city. We're technically in it, now. But this isn't what it's like.» A wry twist comes to his lips. «Matvei, you'd hate it. So many people, so many languages spoken. It's never silent, and the air is crowded with scents. More kinds of food than you can imagine, exhaust, smoke, trees, flowers, people…»

«And Moskva is any different? People everywhere. Sounds. Buildings against the sky. No trees, only thin walls, not enough apartments.» Always that, always the problem. Matvei, a name given to him out of the blue. It fits as well as any. His shoulders twitch and he reclines, shoulders on the bed. Not much space, his chest heaves and feet twitch. «Railcars shuddering. The choirs. Hot, dark tea. The best of bread and ah, the Kremlin. They say Leningrad is the same. We know it is not Moskva.»

«So you do know Moskva,» Bucky says, softly. «Leningrad? Yes. It has too many traces of the Imperial past.» This is beguiling, somehow. To try and integrate Winter's memories -- to lay claim to them, accept them, as his body has accepted the metal graft. «There's a place here that sells proper tea. I'll bring you some.»

«It is not right you do that.» Matvei doesn't ask or bend to its need, its making. However much a nice cuppa might do, Number Two (or Thirty-Three or Six) will not accept freely. The walls go up defensively when Bucky suggests it. «They want something. You want something.»

«Everyone wants something,» Bucky allows, without hesitation. It's a sensation like muscles stretching. Thinking in Russian, speaking it, the subtle change of perspective, the concepts once sharp gone fuzzy, and vice versa. Seductive, dangerous, the native language of his possessing demon. «What do you think I want?»

How about 'your arm back?' Life back? Too easy.

No smile spreads on those thin lips. Matvei is a mirror with self-volition, the means to twist the reflection out of true appearance by a nudge here, a minor alteration there. Disturbing, isn't it? «A cause.» There is no answer other than that. It's the only answer.

«I have one,» Bucky retorts, easily. «And I can get you tea, as well as deodorant, if I want. I can't stand being dirty unless I absolutely have to. You're my brother, after all."

«No prisoner wants to be filthy.» It's true. Matvei really would rather not, trying to avoid sweat staining his sheets or ruining his clothes. There is no malice, no contrition, no amount of anything out of him other than the expected upnod of understanding.

«But many are debased enough to not care if they are.» Bucky remembers that, the first, dimmest memories of a crippled animal in a cell. «I was, when they first had me.» He's matter of fact about it.

Him. Them. Broad enough to be anyone. The soldier stares with those empty, cool eyes in shadows wide enough to swallow trains, his head tipped alertly. Maybe some wheeze of a droning fan awakens his concern. Matvei takes his moments slowly, step by step.

Bucky should be afraid - this one has to be as deadly as he is. More, for there's no other personality to confuse things, to slow reflexes or make him hesitate. Bucky just looks up at him, mutely. His hair's loose, down past his shoulders now -- as if the younger brother could use that rubber band as a potential weapon. «How many of us are there?»

«I don't know.» Simple answer, stretched out over a long, fraught silence. It's all Matvei can offer. His body is still, anticipating a blow of some kind. Maybe welcoming it. Certainly, he doesn't seem to care overly so.

 


	5. Best of Friends, Best of Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The start of Bucky's slowly evolving relationship with Steve begins with a crisis.

It's a sad truth that Bucky's visits do usually presage trouble, these days. He may be getting better, especially in terms of his own sanity, but that doesn't mean he's not still mired in other conflicts. Which may explain his worried expression, as he waits on the stoop of the mansion for Steve to let him in.  
  
With his motorcycle helmet tucked against one arm, Steve enters the gate and blinks as he sees Bucky. For all he receives the reports from Peggy, seeing his best friend in the flesh still registers as a major surprise. The clock ticks closer to doomsday, and of course, there is James.

He has been expecting something coming down the pike. A reckoning. There always is. As he approaches, though, he smiles with an undisguised warmth. However tired he might be, this is a treat. "Hey, Buck. How are you holding up?"  
  
Buck turns, and his own smile appears. "Hey, Steve," he says. "Need any help with that?" He comes back down the steps. As if Steve is still the 90 pound weakling who needs help up the stairs. Old habits die hard.  
  
"I sure hope not," Steve replies with a chuckle and a shake of his head. "If I do then I'm going to need to spend a bit more time in the gym." Out comes the key and he opens the door with a quick flick of his wrist and a kick to the door. He leaves it open as he makes his way to the kitchen. "What’s the special occasion?" 

As if they don’t know.

And just as swiftly as it was there, the smile is gone again. Buck looks grim, as he shuts the door behind Steve and trails after him into a kitchen larger than any apartment he has ever owned. How the world changes; while he scraped by on  a mission, Steve gets to share some of the best real estate in New York. Only fair, given what the Cold War asks of him.

He licks his lips. "It's a long story, and a weird one. But it boils down to this: remember my sister Rebecca, and how she was my only sibling?" He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and goes on, "Technically she still is. Functionally, she's not. I've got a little brother. In fact, I've probably got at least a hundred little brothers."  
  
Steve stops and looks down the hall at Bucky giving a half shake of his head. "I don't quite follow you. Someone leading a secret life or something?" He chuckles, "Not the oddest thing I've ever heard. Ben Franklin supposedly had a ton of illegitimate children."  
  
There's a bark of laughter at that. "God, no, Steve. You knew my dad. He was head over heels for my mom." Bucky shakes his head, as he settles at the kitchen table. His gaze follows the blond around the counter, drinking in the sight. It’s all he can do not to agitate the underside of the table, bouncing his knees. "No. Ever since SHIELD took me to that place on the island, I’ve been pretty stable. Sure of what’s real, what isn’t.”

Steve sets down the helmet and opens up the cabinet, taking out two glasses. While his best friend talks, he fetches a pitcher of water and half a lemon from the fridge. “I heard you’re making good progress. Don’t want you thinking I read all your reports, though.”

“I don’t mind that you do.” Bucky thumbs his sleeve. “Better to know someone who has my back keeps a watch. I was at the headquarters two days ago when this report coming in from an agent in a Mediterranean port. Agent Coulson had me pulled in.” His expression changes, colder and more focused. “This agent was seeing Russian forces in the area, and a whole lot of 'em looked a lot like me. Just no metal arm. Coulson authorized transporting all of us quickly.”

Putting a glass of water in front of the other man, Steve sits opposite him at the table. A lemon bobs around in his own water. “Yeah, it’s been non-stop the past couple of days. I had no idea you were involved with that incident.” He rubs his face. “How does this relate to you having brothers?”

“First time they let me out, and only because no one could find you at the Triskelion.” He takes a healthy sip of the water before pushing on, looking directly at Steve. “We didn't save the agent on the ground, but SHIELD's captured the guys who look like me. Hell, Agent Coulson thought it _was_ me, for a while. I guess the guys they got are clones? Something like that, but they seem to be real boys, not robots. Only they don't really understand that they're individuals. They don't even have names. It's really weird."  
  
Steve gives Bucky a long look over the rim of his glass. Blond hair falls across his brow. How long has it been since he last slept? No chance of it now. "Clones? Really?” His eyebrows furrow. “That sounds like some sci-fi stuff, Buck. Not that we aren’t a bit strange."  
  
He spreads his hands. "Well, yeah. We're living in the future, Steve. Time didn't stand still while we were both in the freezer. I know you've got higher clearance in SHIELD than just about anyone else. This isn't just my delusion, ask 'em."  
  
"No, that's not what I mean. I believe you. It’s the other guys I have trouble wrapping my head around," Steve says as he shrugs his shoulders, easing out a kink in his neck. The tension is only building. "These guys, I’m not sure what to make of them. What are they doing? Do you have an idea of what their goals might be?”  
  
"It's pretty clear the Russians made them like they did me. First guess, same purpose. Tools in the Cold War," Buck notes. He knocks the table with his knee, his expression reflective as much as it is grim.

The chair slides back as Steve gets to his feet. He takes his glass for a refill from the pitcher, and puts back a few groceries left out by another of the residents. Clint will receive a firm talking to at their next dinner or meeting, whichever comes first. “They’re definitely not tools we need out right now. Between the fleet in the North Atlantic and the furor in the Mediterranean, patience is stretched pretty thin. I wouldn’t want an international incident blamed on you because a spy game got out of hand.” Worry creases the corner of his eyes. “What’s your running theory then?”

Bucky stays where he is, not offering to help. He has no idea where that stuff goes anyhow. When the kitchen has as many cupboards as an IKEA warehouse, guessing only does more harm than good. "They only speak Russian. They look like me, and the Russians had me. When SHIELD went in, there was some kind of evacuation going on. My guess, considering how little this guy seems to know of the world is that they're disposable super soldiers. Ever since you got hatched by Erskine, every modern state with the resources has been trying to make something to match you, and more of 'em. We've tried talking to him, and he talks fine, but it's like he's kind of stunted.” He grimaces as he says that. “I mean, he’s not dumb, but he doesn't know anything outside of his unit. And certain stuff it doesn't seem to occur to him to question."  
  
"You said there were hundreds.” The question hangs in the air. How can you be sure and how did you speak to this one in particular? Any idea what they may have planned immediately? Other than just carbon copying a ton of assassins, I mean." Steve closes the refrigerator and leans against it, folding his arms over his chest.  
  
"We had reports from the agent in place, first. That's why I got involved. I was sitting in a SHIELD cell, minding my own business when  I get dragged out because Coulson asked for me. This guy on the radio was yelling about how the this whole town is full of Winter Soldiers. Then we got transported in, and we all saw them firsthand. There were like half a dozen agents with us?" He leans back in the chair, looks at Steve. "There they were. One of the guys with us managed to knock one out, and when we came back to the HQ, we still had him. He's in SHIELD's basement right now." He leans his arm on the table. "That's where I talked to him. We tried asking him what they were up to, and he was just vague."  
  
"About as coherent as anything I’ve heard," Steve says as he rubs his jaw. "SHIELD’s still trying to round up the rest. I appreciate how hard tracking you was, seeing the efforts the agents are going to.” A certain wry warmth touches the easy smile given for such a brief time. “I’m curious, though, Buck. What was his reaction to seeing you? I mean, you noted that they don't seem to have a lot of outside interests, but that might have been jarring." The thought occurs to him a moment later, smoothing his expression back to thoughtful. "Maybe not, he presumably grew up with a lot of yous. Tough break for him."  
  
Bucky shakes his head. "It wasn't jarring at all, for him. I was just one of the many, you know? They don't know where they came from. They think they have parents."  
  
"Where do you go from here?" Steve asks. He rubs his face, his broad palm messing up his bangs again. Hair is getting long, he’ll need a trim soon. “Let me talk with Peggy or Fury. Someone ought to have information about the rest. Maybe having them together produces more coherent results.”  
  
"They haven't told me yet," Bucky admits, quietly. "I’m still under suspicion of working for Department  X or the Politburo so far's the average agents’re concerned. My own status is kind of ambiguous. I'm not jailed or anything, no one's threatening me. Peggy sees to that." And then there's an odd blankness in his face. "Steve," he says, hesitating, "I've got something I need to give you."  
  
"I guess that's a good point. I just figured given who you are, Peggy might have pulled you into the Intel meetings. All hands on deck right now." Steve tilts his head, looking at Buck. Curiosity gets the better of him, but his fondness glows all the same. "Give me something? What is it?"  
  
"When… when this guy was working on me, and all the stuff the Russians put in there, he helped me dig out the codewords they use on me. They apparently work on these clones or brothers, too. They work on me just fine.” Bucky tries not to squirm in his seat under that steady gaze. He never finches in the field, but faced with his best friend and everything falls apart. “I want to give them to you because you're one of the few I trust to have them. They'll let you shut me down if something goes really wrong."  
  
Steve raises his eyebrows and nods. Whatever hesitation surrounds him fades in a moment or two. "You don’t have to do that, Buck.”

He frowns. “I want to. Please. Especially when I’ve got a whole mob of twins or clones or kids out there, we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

A nod assents to the soldier’s request, but Steve wears that troubled look he gets whenever thinking through difficult subjects. “All right. We need to make sure they're safe and don't get out to the wrong people. Whatever this phrase is would have been pretty useful in the past. I hope we'll never have to use them. I promise I won’t let anyone abuse them."  
  
Bucky nods. "Okay," he says, clearly trying to work up the courage. "First one is the knockout. This'll shut me right down to unconsciousness. Just two words: _Soldat sputnik_ . Don't say it back to me or I'll faint right here, for real."  
  
"I bet that's going to be a great hit at dinner parties," Steve says with a nod. Goose flesh stipples his forearms, fine hairs rising. "Got it."  
  
Steve gets a blank stare for a moment. Then he dissolves into helpless laughter. "Oh, thanks, Steve," Bucky says, face in his metal hand for a moment. "You'd better not pull that on me in public. The second one I know is longer. This one, I'm conscious, but I'll follow whatever directions I'm given. That includes longer term stuff, like, say, getting to America and shooting you in the head." Whereupon he recites the whole 'Longing, rusted….' litany, in careful Russian.  
  
"Oh," Steve responds as Bucky remarks about assassination attempts. The colour drains from his face, replaced by a mask of guilt that cuts to the quick to see.

  
He can see that realization set in, and Bucky nods, approvingly. "Recite it back to me, in reverse. Start with the last word. I want to make sure you have it. SHIELD's gonna have it, too. I told Coulson, and I know it's going to be stored away somewhere. I need someone I trust absolutely to be able to stop or undo it, because the time will come that they're going to do that to me. I trust Peggy, but Peggy's not everyone there."  
  
Even Peggy has made some decisions that Steve has had some trouble swallowing in the past. "That makes sense. Let me worry about SHIELD treating this like the secret it is." Slowly, and carefully, he recites it, backwards, doing a pretty good job of it. Clearly he was paying attention.  
  
"Now forwards," Buck's being a little bossy, but then, this is the most sensitive subject there is, where he's concerned.  
  
Steve nods, and just as slowly, goes ahead and begins to stay the words forwards, raising his eyebrows as he does so. As he finishes, he looks on warily, worried of what it might do.  
  
When he finishes the last word in the phrase book, there's no sudden movement. Bucky doesn't lunge out of the chair for Steve's throat. But his posture's changed, the blue eyes are utterly, disturbingly empty and he's watching Steve with the calm attentiveness of a guard dog awaiting a command. "Ya gotov otvechat," he says, quietly.  
  
For a moment, Steve considers his options. _Run for the hills. Tell him to hop on one foot_ . _Ask if he ever had a thing for Dot._ No. None of those are suitable, and the laughing teenagers they were in Brooklyn is totally different, forty years on. Azzano looms heavy in his mind.

"Bring back the old Bucky," Steve says slowly, deliberately, "And disregard any commands the real Bucky doesn't want to adhere to."  
  
There's a perturbed moment where that other presence is still looking out of his friend's eyes and then it's submerged, gone like a shark diving. Something in his expression eases, but then his gaze are sad again. "You saw, didn't you?" Not really a question.  
  
Steve nods, "Yeah, Buck. I saw." An image he won’t forget for a long, long time. Horror and distant revulsion roil in the belly and he swallows the leaden weight caught in his throat. _What the heck did they do to you? How could they make that?_

 

Questions, so many questions. Ones that will necessitate a personal visit to O Division for a talk with the head of psychiatry and a long visit in Peggy’s office. She has enough things to worry about, and if the world doesn’t fall apart in a week, Steve knows his personal marching orders. After that dramatic pause, he hurries to fill the void. "But don't worry, I didn't make you do anything too embarrassing. Assuming you don't have anything against Mrs. Thompson from two doors down."  
  
"You could've at least lit my cigarette for me after, Steve," Bucky complains, deadpan. Rolling with the joke.  
  
"I'm only half the gentleman people think I am," Steve shoots back.

  
"But you're twice the lady the rest of us are," Bucky retorts, eyes agleam. A little rusty at the verbal fencing, but you never do forget how.  
  
Steve lets out a laugh, as Bucky gets a good shot in. "I must admit that I am in touch with my feminine side." He continues a snicker, "What else is going on with you?"  
  
"I never have seen you with your stocking seams crooked," Buck concedes, magnanimously. "Other than that? Not much. Training when I can. Reading. I mean, this thing with SHIELD's gonna take a lot of time, and they don’t pay much when you’re not official. Peggy got me a pay cheque, but nowhere in the city is cheap."  
  
"Ain’t that the truth," Steve says, adopting an easier stance now they’re not talking about clones and death. Almost like old times. "If you need a place to crash ever, you're more than welcome to stay here. I have plenty of extra space, a stocked fridge, and a steady stream of beautiful people who come in at all hours of the night." He pauses. "When I put it like that you'd think I lived in the greatest house in America."  
  
"Don't tempt me," Bucky says, hesitantly, the humor fading. "I crash in rooms you rent by the week or in SHIELD safehouses, when It’s no trouble. I'm no princess but I don't like feeling like I'm perpetually underfoot."  
  
"I wasn't underfoot when you used to have me stay over at your place when we were kids," Steve says with a head twitch. "Don't be proud."  
  
"You weren't an internationally wanted assassin back then, Steve. You gotta lotta roommates here. They gonna be all right with the crazed gunman in the attic?" Of course he knows where the rooms are. Of course he's literally scoped this place out. Tony Stark might need a 7.62 firm talking-to, sometime….And somewhere he's not parading around in that Iron Man suit.  
  
"Well, no, but I like to think that certain parts of the world would still like to see me six feet under. Your friends in Russia, of course." Steve chuckles and sighs, "You have a point though."  
  
He considers that. "I mean, this _is_ pretty much one of the safest places in New York for me if your housemates are okay with it. Yeah, I'll take you up on it. If they need me to leave, just say."  
  
Steve nods, "The won't. And even if they did, I know the shut down words for you. So, there's that." He chuckles a bit, before clasping Bucky on the shoulder, "Come on, I'll go get your room ready."  



	6. Unfortunate Sons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the weeks after SHIELD recovered the Soviet super-soldiers from Lebanon, things have been unnaturally quiet. All that ends with a bang.

**OPERATIONS ALERT**

**NYC A/B, SITES A-L**

**Warning** : Unauthorized communication system use

SHIELD experienced an unauthorized broadcast on all internal communications systems in New York City headquarters, the Triskelion, and several off site facilities.

The broadcasts began at all sites at 1251 hours on 11.22.1983. The programming included the Four Tops' "Baby I Need Your Loving," Dusty Springfield's "Wishin' and Hopin'," Terry Stafford's "Suspicion," and Skeeter Davis' "The End of the World."

This breach may seem a harmless prank. Be assured the insertion of an unwanted broadcast will be treated with appropriate severity. Technical staff and engineers will be searching for the source of the breach. Until such time, access to comm systems for anyone lower than level 5 status has been rescinded.

 

* * *

It all begins with garbled noise, a comms blackout across SHIELD facilities in the Northeast.

Round up a few good men and take a tour. In these troubled times, SHIELD has far too much to do and not enough hands to do it. They can't afford to lose one agent for an idle trip, much less four. Who can spare a pilot and a sleek black chopper that looks like it belongs at Da Nang rather than Throgs Neck? Pilot and navigator both greet the assigned party with a minimum of fuss, giving no time to get strapped in before they're airborne.

Agent Kess wears protective earmuffs and carries a black dossier, giving a very simple rundown. "We're headed into Québec. You can forget about issues with the Canadians," she shouts over the whirl of the blades that bump them high over the city and veer sharply north up the Hudson. "Settle in and let's make this real simple. Site I is a holding facility for some special guests of ours. They went into blackout eighteen minutes ago. Lockdown proceeded to follow. It's nine clicks out of a farming town where shit just doesn't happen, so let's make this a quick sweep. You're authorized to locate and contain. No bullets except for last resort."

Helicopters: they didn't really have those in his day. Not in his first war. But the later ones? Those he knows. So Bucky's looking around with interest as they're inbound. Dressed in plain gray fatigues, he has no insignia beyond basic SHIELD stuff. He's something of an independent contractor and something of a project. His face is almost expressionless, though he smiles, now and again, when his gaze comes to rest on Fitz. The scientist clearly enjoys himself a little too much for a black ops mission.

Fitz is good at two things: infiltration and breaking things by science. SHIELD, of course, knows this. Infiltration usually has some advanced warning. So the rush to get on a helicopter and go somewhere is likely an emergency where he might need to break something. Or someone. It's not often he gets to ride in a helicopter so he's looking out and down at the ground.

With his coat opened, Clint sits at the edge of the helicopter, so wishing they'd ridden in with the doors open. Tapping his finger on the side of his bow, he waits for the signal to land and deploy.

Kess doesn't like the order. It's written in her face, her drawn expression. "Guests are enhanced. Seven total patients. They _may_ speak English. Incomplete assessments, got it? We don't know what sparked blackout on comms, so until we have that we're putting a lid on it."

"Special guests? Enhanced in what way?" Bucky asks. A briefing is a briefing, whether it's here, shouted over the rattle of the rotors, or in a flapping canvas tent on the south side of the Italian Alps, months past the advent of Husky.

Fitz looks forward when the pilot starts filling them in. "Guests are enhanced? Patients? Are you saying you've been keeping people prisoner and experimenting on them?" Technically it's 'we've been experimenting on them' but at the moment, he's not thinking of himself as a field agent. "What did SHIELD do to them and how are they 'enhanced?’"

While everyone else is asking about the enhancements, Clint gives a grunt. "Dammit. All right, no shootin' them in the face. Just means shoot them in the knee," he offers with a snort as he glances towards Fitz, and snorts. "Doubt SHIELD did anythin' to 'em, probably arrived like this. Powered folks aren’t all good guys, you know."

Kess doesn't look up from her notes for a while. "We've not assessed if they're more like Steve Rogers or him," and she hikes her thumb in Bucky's direction. The cold, flat stare that levels younger agents does absolutely no favours in warming the hawkish looks nature gave her. Credit where due that she doesn't flinch from Fitz's question. "We gave them room and board while administering psychiatric evaluations and treatment for boys that know plenty about killing and not two bits about buses, record players, or can openers. You have any idea of what a wetworks squad looks like?”

She flips another page. “Constellation is SHIELD's idea for rehabilitating soldiers caught in a field of war. They're not prisoners because far as anyone knows they don't exist. They're not free because we don't know what trips their triggers and currently their home went dark, no one's answering the door, and we have six thousand people in a fifteen-kilometer radius who might start looking like the enemy if you catch my drift."

The helicopter ride is a long one. Forest surrenders to patchwork fields and the pilot starts to push speed higher. It's not every day a military grade choppers goes howling over the north woods. Finger lakes slide in and out of sight. The banking curve sticks them somewhere past the murky point where two countries join.

He only knew about the one, the one in New York. The one without a name. _He’ll need a name, sooner or later_ . But Bucky apparently recognizes the description, and he blanches. "Oh, dear god," he says. And then he turns to the others. "They might react to a set of trigger phrases in Russian. They do work on me, so be careful when you use them." It galls him to hand over the mental keys to a whole new set of others, but it'll have to be better than seeing his brothers slaughtered. "' _Soldat sputnik_ ' is the first one. Should knock them out. The second," he recites the whole 'longing, rusted' litany, "will render them pliant to orders. Use the first if you can."

Buck adds, after a beat, "They probably look like me."

Fitz considers what Kess says then nods, looking approving. "Good. We've been trying to help them." It's back to 'we' again. "I'll try not to hurt them." Says the guy who looks like a college prep in a SHIELD uniform. Brow furrowing, he listens to Bucky and mouths the phrases a few times to commit them to memory.

" _Soldat sputnik_. Ain't going to say what that sounds like, Barnes." Clint offers dryly as he turns his attention to the countryside. "Think this is the furthest north I've been so far." He considers and then ohs. "Is there a good bar up here?"

Altitude decreases until the pine trees can be counted individually and if Clint tosses out a butt from his  cigarette, he could possibly cause an international incident by blowing up a gas refinery or causing a forest fire. Unlike the War of 1812, the British aren't going to evacuate anyone on their way to Washington. Kess snorts. "Land of maple syrup, Barton. You get the finest in the land and they've got a _cartel_ for it. We pay off tappers now and then." Could be serious.

The navigator stretches around his seat. "We're going in. You'll be jumping down from the lines at fifty feet, got it? Any hint of gunfire, bird's out and you go in hot. No word so far." The radios are sadly silent.

Well, it works. Because even that casual recitation is loud enough to be heard, and Buck's head lolls forward in what looks like a dead faint. Thank goodness he's strapped in. He's nudged back into consciousness after a moment, blinking owlishly as if he'd just had a nap, instead of a thirty second blackout.

Fitz just nods at the instructions. "Yeah, sure. We can do that." He doesn't sound very worried, his mind calculating descent and any number of approaches. "Once we're done here, think we can stop at a store and pick up some syrup? If it's that good, I'd like to get some to take home."

Reaching over, Clint pokes Bucky a couple of times to make sure he's awake. “You all right?" he asks. "Didn't tell me that phrase works on you. Though you keel over at the table later, I'm pouring maple syrup down your earhole." That could have been serious. Who knows for sure, but Kess gets a grin.

Kess curses again under her breath. "This is right inconvenient. Why wasn't this in the file _before_?" Decimated expectations pile up and get shoved in a mental corner. The agent's jaw works under her thumb and she pulls at the straps. "Ha ha, very funny. We'll talk. These boys just disassembled the tower, sure. They got things happening then prove you can subdue without killing. Otherwise, you're dealing with ladies and gents well above my pay grade and a full tribunal."

The pilot starts to slow the chopper and the drop in altitude is guaranteed to pop some eardrums or cause general discomfort. He's not aware of the fainting spell but the navigator is practically staring and undoubtedly remembering that exact phrase.

"Hundred and closing," shouts the pilot. "Get your asses off my bird!" Before him stretches out what for all the world probably looks like a functioning farm of some kind.

"It's classified info because I just handed you the keys to the minds of any number of Soviet agents. Including myself.” Bucky's voice has a growl in it, wolfish. "But better that than you killing them. I count them as my brothers," he informs them. Clint gets a pat on the arm, none too kind, and a snort. "I hear you, Barton,"

To the pilot and Kess, he says "If you've got a broadcast or loud hail on this bird, do it. Use the words, and try and knock 'em out that way." Then he's out of the bird and heading for cover - armed only with rifle and pistol. Neither of which he'll be willing to use, surely.

"I don't kill people," Fitz informs Kess. Even if he's being trained to. In case of emergency. Unstrapping, he glances between Bucky and the archer, as the former explains. "Not a bad idea," he agrees and follows the former Soviet agent out.

"I only kill archers. And vampires. And other shit that goes bump in the night." Clint nods at the pat to his arm. "Stuff some cotton in your ears before they broadcast, though." With that, he's dropping like a stone from the helicopter and the others head to the treeline, while he's a purple and black target that approaches the barn directly, nocking an arrow to his bow while he goes. While he can be subtle, he doesn’t seem to be in the mood.

"We'll be keeping the bird in the air and ready. I'm down and providing cover." Kess unstraps herself last, and the unspooling lines launched by a few presses of a button or a switch snap in the wind. It's a nasty way down but suitable for anyone with an iota of strength.

No wonder she reserves getting to the ground at a distance. _She_ isn't an archer, scientist or super-soldier assassin. Pay grades imply sitting at the back and firing a machine pistol at the nearest form of trouble. Her black hat and muffs are plucked off, anticipating a hasty departure.

Well, with Tall, Barton, and Conspicuous in train, there's no approaching with stealth or subtlety. So Buck's not trying. Quite the reverse. He's yelling, in fact, in Russian, at the top of his lungs. Considering he made sergeant by field promotion, he's got a set of lungs on him, even if he wasn't a DI. «Brothers!» he bellows, at the top of his lungs. «Hey! It's me!»

**_Site I_ **

Pretty Quebec farm: imagine green fields that roll up to a collection of farm buildings scattered regularly around a central square. The fences are solid and sturdy as modern agriculture demands, though charged with a hell of a lightning spark for any fool getting close. Gates are pinned shut and the road leading in along the way has clusters of outbuildings presumably for handling things like sprinklers and whatnot. Lies, of course. They're all manned outposts for other countermeasures for anyone moseying up. The main facility buildings are long and low, some made of brick like housing for employees on site. Others are metal-shod and low, dark presumably, for whatever livestock expected here.

Once on the ground, a quick pair of wings making that easy and painless, Fitz trails behind Bucky at a more sedate pace. And with all the shouting, he tightens his Kevlar vest around him so that bullets won't bother him when they come his way. Guaranteed, someone's going to start shooting something.

With Bucky calling attention to them, Clint glances aside to the super soldier. "Yeah, you just keep nattering at them. Doesn’t that always go so well?" The electrified fence awaits, and he can feel the power flowing from it. "Suggest standing back. This is gonna make you all tingly." With that, he exchanges an arrow for another in his quiver and takes aim, loosing the bolt straight for a pole. The string twangs and when the bulbous head strikes metal, the stink of ozone on the air blossoms.

Who the hell made that fence? It's probably Tony Stark on a bender, because only a demented man like him would make a reactive metal fence. A number of pressure mechanisms explode out from the impact point and all along the front. The charges lash steel wires this way and that, searching for flesh to garrote like wet clay under a thick string, but it still doesn't make for fun.

Naturally, the ozone scent of active electrification is there.

No one answers the shout. If there are guards, they are not at their posts.

"Fuck," Bucky says, under his breath. "If they're like Matvei, they'll just accept me as one of them. He had a real hard time understanding I wasn't just another operative. We'll see if these guys do." Smart, Bucky, smart. Wearing a gorilla suit in the misty forests of Africa will totally fool the gorillas that live there. A glance back at the fence marks the ugly effect. "Here's hoping we didn't just let them all out," he adds. Too late. No one obediently prairie-dogs up at his call.

Suggest standing back? "Why don't we…" Watch as Clint shoots another arrow at the electrified fence. Whatever the first one was meant to do apparently didn’t have the effect he wanted. This one blows open with an explosive pulse, ripping the wires open with a telekinetic pulse.

"Just go over it?" Fitz finishes about three seconds too late. "How much of this place is underground? And is it fortified? Would the guards have holed up somewhere safe or are they now all hostages?" Not that anyone here has an answer, but he has to ask.

"What the fraggity frack!" Clint's language filter is well in place as the barbed wire tendrils explode with a noisy _zot_. “When we find who designed this, we teach them something about putting a gate in.” As he heads up the opened path, another arrow is swiftly brought to his bow from the seemingly endless supply in his quiver.

Bucky doesn’t look back. "Down the road to the main house," he says. His rifle's still over his shoulder. No shooting.

A little further back, the senior agent thumbs the safety on her gun. Kess rolls her eyes at the banter. No point in arguing with the men to keep it to a dull roar. “What a great night.”

All begins simply enough. The Triskelion or Westchester headquarters aren't much different from Site I. Another day buzzes with the usual routine activities at SHIELD. Paperwork waits for no man or woman but stacks up in mountainous drifts that handlers insist must be dealt with before the weekend. Closer to lunch, the fitness room fills up with people sparring in the plain ring or punching sand-filled bags hanging from the ceiling.

Meeting rooms are filled by bureaucrats and typists. The more important mandarins slip from corridor to corridor, feeding data to the directors. Poor souls listen in to the Tokyo Olympics, tapped lines, bugged hotel rooms.

Some orderly in a brown shirt and ill-fitting suit taps another. The gathered group tunes in to hear news out of Vienna at the IAEA meeting. Was there nuclear fallout over Iraq? No one seems to know.

Lunch plans creep closer to fulfillment. In a glassed-in cell, a young man sits cross-legged on the ground and listens to calming, good old Four Tops under the watchful eye of a shrink and two bored guards.

"Bet the Orioles'll take the Phillies tonight," says Edmunds.

"They better after the embarrassment yesterday. Dempsey made 'em show their bellies." Clark's a bitter man. He doesn't even glance at the Soviet captive tapping his fingers.

Throughout the facility, music starts to play. A few startled sounds might be heard in the office. In a lab, a supervisor spins and demands to know, "What's the meaning of this? Turn that off. We've got sensitive work going on. This isn't a roadhouse and you aren't students!"

In another room, a young man looks up in puzzlement. Speakers that normally ding with the time for the next rotation of activity now blossom alive.

Over the hissing zap and scorch sonnets of the electrified fence, it's disturbingly quiet. Until that cheerful music starts to play, replacing a speaker system. It's definitely Four Tops of a kind.

Minus a word or two sinking in, the background noise on repeat.

"Baby, I need your lovin', baby, I need your lovin', although you're never near. Your voice I often hear… _Zhelaniye_ . _Rzhavyy._ "

A buttery crooning joins together, twinned tracks melting together. "Another day, another night, I long to hold you tight, 'cause I'm so lonely… _Semnadtsat'_."

"I don't think they'd take hostages," Bucky says, quietly. "They're more likely to move out by stealth, try to escape, find a way to make it back. Or cause what destruction they can reach. We've got no contact here, right? No sound from the legit agents…" He glances in the direction of Kess. "Probably underground, right?" he asks her, tone less than sanguine.

Then there are those words and he stiffens. They know them now. "Goddammit," he says. "That's it. You may have to knock me out. Remember the words I gave you." It's too loud. He can't get away far enough, fast enough.

Fitz hangs back a bit to make sure Clint is okay but when it seems that he is, he continues on toward the main house. At least until the music starts and he looks around with profound uncertainty, focusing on Bucky. Swallowing, he waves his hand in front of him. " _Soldat sputnik?_ "

Somewhere comes a loud, cracking noise of glass or metal giving. Protesting surfaces hit repeatedly by desperate fists might sound so terribly distant underneath the mono refrain of the announcement system. The cracks originate not from the brick building but one of the longer sheds probably made to store equipment. Or people, as it were.

Finally free to assess his surroundings, Clint grunts and glances over at Fitz. "I don't think you were supposed to say it _yet_ ," he hisses, moving in case he needs to catch Bucky before he hits the ground.

Which is precisely what he does. Bucky swoons like a corseted belle at an overcrowded ball: the pale eyes rolls up, and he simply collapses in a clatter of armaments, right into Clint's arms. The weight of him is considerable, and that sudden descent may be enough to knock them over.

"He never said how long it takes for them to be taken over." Fitz points out, a bit defensively. "Better too soon than too late." But while Clint plays Prince to Bucky's Sleeping Beauty, he steps in front of them and starts scanning the area for movement. "They obviously know we're here."

"Yeah well, he's out." Clint glances down and pats the side of Bucky's face. "Hey, wakey wakey, eggs and backey." No telling how many times Bucky said that to a much younger Steve. If some of the slaps are a bit firm, that’s purely to ensure the slumber breaks.

Kess slips the nearer, using what cover she can. Slipping nearer to Fitz, she frowns in profound discomfort sealed by a professionalism that even an assassin passing out cannot resist. “This,” she says, “is what the Soviets do. Any questions? You haven’t got the liberty to play nice. We don’t know what else they’re programmed to do.”

"Gotta have all your lovin', baby I need your lovin', _rassvet_." So the lyrics churn on, but their audible instructions cannot help someone driven to sleep. On the other hand, the resisting vibrations of metal shatter under an increasingly desperate force that thumps a staccato battery.

No one is moving at ground level. Lockdown is lockdown, after all. Maybe someone heard on the way up. Maybe they never know.

The wait for him to recover his consciousness is shorter than might be expected. He's up again, if vague and dazed. Faint handprints fade against his cheek when he shrugs off Clint; it’s nothing personal. Or everything is personal. Buck slings the rifle to ready, taking it off safety. The scientist has the right idea, inasmuch as anything else. He sights down on the speakers, trying to shoot them out. "Guys," he says, "Shut the sound system down. That's it."

Fitz glances at the speakers on the poles, then nods. "I'll take care of them and then scout around a bit. Put your fingers in your ears or something and wait till the music stops." That being said, he runs for the nearest one with the intention of taking them out one after another. The small pistol pulled from his boot gives off a distinctly blue glow when he presses his palm to the stock, disengaging whatever SHIELD-sanctioned protections lock it to him.

Cracks break into the dark. Silenced voices crumble away into nothing thanks to a fist or a bullet driven into the casings of cheap metal. Tinny music gutted midbeat allow another word to slip out: " _Pech'_." One day ask the Soviets why the hell their command words included furnaces. Because really, why bury that in an oldies gem of Motown?

With Fitz heading off, and Bucky sighting his rifle, Clint is still trying to figure out the best approach in all the chaos. Not about to volunteer to run in first, he goes slower, cautious. Bow at the ready, he ghosts closer to one of the buildings. After Bucky warned of his issues, the archer ain't quite ready to leave. Instead, he digs around in his pockets and into a pouch. Pulling out a couple of small bundle, he empties out the contents -- saltpeter, as it happens -- and rips the fabric in half before giving it to Bucky. "Stick this in your ears." He starts to move towards that shed he heard the noises from.

The sound comes from a rather large metal building. Whatever it contains hopefully won't ignite. A lack of windows should be no surprise and the tidy front doors are big enough to steer a tractor through. Probably reinforced, too.

The Winter Soldier does precisely as Barton suggests, and stops his ears with cotton. Someone honestly needs to start carrying earplugs with him, doesn't he? Bucky's working on taking out the speakers as best he can, the rattle of short burst fire loud against the speakers. Because nothing soothes the soul like semiautomatic fire. One by one they fall, silenced effectively.

Going up to the shed doors, Clint frowns as he hears the banging on the other side. "What do you think? Looks like they’re not expecting visitors, right?" he asks Bucky. Then pauses. Bucky's ears are plugged. Dammit. Turning towards the soldier, he points at the door and pantomimes a punching motion and then shrugs in that 'Ya wanna' type way.

Like any proper partially deaf man, Buck's voice is way, way too loud. " _ASK 'EM WHO THEY ARE!"_ he bellows. And then he suits the action to the word by taking one earplug out and shouting the question in Russian.

While the cacophony destroys any attempts at stealth, Fitz and Kess form a wedge closing up on the door. Guns point to the entrance, in the event any sort of prisoners come bursting out in a death rage.

Banging on the door, Clint shouts, "Chinese take out!" He hen waits for Bucky to replug his ear, an essential factor given what follows. He adds in quite loudly as he prepares to kick in the door, " _Soldat sputnik!_ "

The screaming that rattles the dented, extremely mangled chunk of wall within does not mean a good thing for the occupants or any chickens outside. Whatever makes those imperfections is not fighting with more than fists, given the corresponding shapes battered into the metal.

Whether or not they actually sound like him -- and he does remember the sound of his own voice raised in wordless torment -- imagination is painting it that way. Bucky's pale again, frantic. "Barton," he orders. "Bust it open. I don't know what the fuck's happening in there, but it's gotta stop."

There's a bit of a frown, but Clint nods his agreement. "One door opening coming up, get your guns ready!" Not really a necessary statement, all things considered, what with the two agents ready to unleash hot lead. With that, he draws back his right fist for maximum effort. Another hum of the bow releases the arrow. It collides with the door, smashing it open. Knock knock. Who's there? Hell. Hell who? Hello to you too!

A groan from the Scottish scientist speaks heavily to his disapproval. “I wish I’d never given you the blueprint for the arrows.”

Metal already strained just falls over on the ground, reinforcements planted into the jamb insufficient for holding back the doubled force. Behind that wall is another demolished layer of plaster and insulation, sticking out like the stuffing in a Thanksgiving turkey. Whole pieces are ripped away thanks to a flurry of side kicks lashed out against the poor, innocent SHIELD architecture by a brown-haired man with hands pressed to his ears. Behind him is the torn-out husk of a door where another figure, stooped over. Even through the dust in the air, their physical similarity to one another and Agent Barnes is clear. He’s slightly younger and certainly hewn from the same physical superiority, shuddering violently. Blood trickles from cuts on face and brow and nose, the grim crawl down the hall enough to see from the rusty droplets on the floor.

Buck's darting past Clint in a hurry. And the first word out of his mouth is a Russian imperative. «Report!» Thank God he's not in full SHIELD drag to confuse things further. That's enough to throw someone for a loop, if they haven't encountered that spectacle before -- there are more Buckies. Paler, shorter hair, less weathering. But very clearly brothers, if not identical twins.

When Bucky goes racing by, Fitz almost reaches out to stop him. His left hand drops to his pistol though just in case, as the scientist remains in the shadow of the opening created in the wall. “The reports weren’t kidding. They’re bloody twins.”

“We don’t know what they are. Remember that,” Kess says.

The first man flinches back at those words, striving to hear through the musical cacophony deeper in the building. Outside might be silent but how many walls are sufficient to blot out the sounds. «I don't want to go back! Don't let it take me, don't let it take me!» His haggard face shows torment and grim determination under a mask of blood. Russian crashes off his tongue as he forcibly keeps moving, hell to pistols. They aren't perfectly facsimiles of Bucky, not this one whose eyes are even paler and build obviously absent a glintingmetal arm.

The other looks up blankly. «The men would not shut up about their ball game. The music played. I must… must… not… not…»

« _Don't listen! Go, to live we go!_ » the first shouts back to the young man on this belly, convulsing and spitting out bile. His body rejects what his mind knows, and that is not a yoke sitting well.

«No one will take you,» Bucky assures them, putting out hands to each of them in turn. But this must be the safest thing. «You're not slaves anymore.» He plugs his ears again before trying the shutdown phrase. “ _Soldat sputnik_.”

If they can be made to sleep, they can be bound and kept from harming themselves or others. It's already a nightmare scenario - what'll happen if one of them is killed.

Clint is waiting for Bucky to tell him to approach. It's better for him to handle it for now, because no telling what would happen if the blond archer stepped into the room bearing an obvious weapon and that impressive violet and black getup. Though he understands what’s being said, he pays attention to tone of voice. The least sign of hostile intent and that arrow pointed at the ground ends up in flight.

As far as the soldier in front is concerned, he'll damn well run into the arms of Hell to get away. He just about does if Clint happens to be in the punch zone where the wall was. The fleeing captive can't really tell a man from a shadow. As far as he knows, freedom lies in the hills over yonder and nothing will stop him from running, staggering there.

The other one, less wounded physically but much more to the soul, wrings at his t-shirt and snags Bucky's hand blind. He grabs a wrist and hauls at it, a lifeline.

A supersoldier fleeing from an outbuilding is enough to send Fitz reeling back several steps. He brings the gun up in both hands. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

"Catch him, Barton, don't let him hurt himself!" Bucky urges, even as he's pulling the other to himself. «Brother, it's going to be all right. I've got you. But you need to help me find the others. I'm okay, see?» And he smiles into the younger man's face. «You're going to be fine. No one's going to hurt you.»

When the man runs into the opening, the arm of the archer reaches out to grab him. "Not so fast, princess." Clint is pretty questionable at Russian. "You can't go running away just yet." he mutters, trying to restrain the… "The hell. You got clones, Barnes?"

It _may_ be a terrible idea for Clint to try and stop a man determined at all accounts to get out. Especially because he packs a hell of a punch when he wants to, and all the frozen certainty of a Siberian winter rises to the fore. He's fast. Extremely. Pressure points and weak spots at the body are easily enough exploited, struck in rapid force just in case that hope of release is dying on the vine. Better to go down fighting than not.

The man pulled up clamps his hand over his ear, head tilted against the incomplete activation he's trying so hard to throw off. «Don't know, don't — don't. Don't — let him out, let us go. We can't listen to the music, not the music.»

Fitz presses his thumb to the stun bolt on his gun, tracking between the archer entangled with the older soldier. “I can’t get a clear shot!” That warning needs only to hold until an opening, the charge building up.

«Help me,» Bucky pleads with the one he's holding. «Help me find the others. We'll stop this. We've already destroyed some of the broadcast speakers. What's your name?"» Surely this kid has one, if he's been in SHIELD's custody.

The other one's fighting, and he barks the shutdown phrase again: “ _Soldat sputnik_.” If it makes the guy he's got his hands on pass out? Well, they can be revived.

"Hey, settle down, we're trying to help... oof! Oh for... Stop it!" Clint is trying to grab at the man as he hits at pressure points that would take down a normal man, if not for the armour and the bow in the way. " _Soldat sputnik!_ " he barks in time with Bucky, near enough to count. Trying to slug the older of the captives is a difficult task as he blocks blows.

Thin light flares in the bloodied man's eyes as he attempts to break through Clint’s guard. "Don't even try." Is that _English?_ Turns out that yes, yes it is. Very much New York English. The younger version of Bucky may not have the full strength -- barely -- but he's got another trick up his sleeve, the commensurate agility of a Baryshnikov and a snow tiger. People shouldn't really bend the way he can.

«Stop it,» cries out the other, clearly taking about as well to seeing the other harmed as one member of an elite unit tolerates violence against his brother. His muscles tense, bulging under the skin, threatening to break free for a tandem assault. Training is training. «Don't know where they all go. They don't let us out like that. Their rooms? _Adam!_ »

"Fuck," says James, startled into his native tongue. "Guys, stand down. We're here to help you. Adam, quit hitting him!"

Then in Russian again, he addresses the younger one. «Jesus Christ, guys, look at me. I'm one of you. Hell, I'm the first of you, you're my kids. I'm James. That purple guy's a friend.» Not quite the truth, but good enough. He repeats some of it in English. God, it's encouraging to hear at least one of them speak English. He's had no damn luck with his twin in the Triskelion dungeons. _Matvei_.

«I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.» Whatever Russian Fitz picked up in the academy on his way to a fully-fledged SHIELD agent never was quite intended for this purpose. His hand remains still.

"Stop trying to punch me and I will. Fucker's more slippery than Jello! And I hate Jello." Clint grumbles. His best efforts to fend off and push any advantage against the elder of the two captives has mixed results. Adam hasn’t managed to throw him but neither has he gained much.

Within a holding facility marked ominously as Building E, two young men grapple daunting odds to clutch their future or be at odds with their past. The more coherent of the two is Adam, bloodied and English-speaking, trying to break the Winter Soldier's hold on him. Melodies conveyed through the fixed speakers or radios is diminished in force thanks to the relentless background efforts to rip out wires or shoot down speakers. Given the distant and incoherent crackle, suggesting success locating a main line or maybe taking down a tower. Still, the muffled thumps of command phrases rattle in their skulls, and drive Adam to stare at the hole in the wall, the possibility of freedom. Of getting away. His gestures are even more desperate.

The other one, younger and greyer-eyed than blue, is in worse shape. His efforts to break free from the half-archer aren't getting quite as far as they should, though he takes those punches with an alarming degree of resistance. «Adam, go! Go! I can't — not — not like this, it's like wasps in my skull, can't fight, fight it!»

It's heartbreaking to him. There's that gut-deep recognition. The sense of belonging. "Adam," Bucky says, trying to get the other Soldier to look at him. "Look at me. C'mon. Help me. We have to help them, help our brothers. If you run, god only knows what'll happen to them. Who's the other one there?" A jerk of his chin indicates the one struggling in Barton's grip. "And if the shutdown doesn't work on you, the command doesn't all the way, does it? You've broken it, haven't you?" James gives Clint a desperate look. "Get him to stop fighting. Barton's not going to hurt anyone."

To the kid in question, he calls, "Don't fight it. Let it wash over you. We've got you. We're not gonna let anyone take you away."

Not going to hurt anyone. The hell you say, Bucky Barnes. "This boy doesn't stop, I'm gonna let Fitz stun us both, you hear?" Clint grumps in irritation as he's trying to keep the crazed boy in check. His command of martial arts is good, but he grunts in pain anyhow. So much for keeping Adam from getting in any strikes against the archer. "Easy, kiddo, like Buck said, we're the good guys. You know. Amerikasnskis? Hamburgers, hot dogs, apple pie? Land of the free, home of the brave? Strip clubs with no minimum cover?"

"Kyr," gasps out Adam, the blood from the cut on his brow streaming down the side of his face in pulses matching the throb of his heart. Other wounds are largely confined to his hands, proof of where he literally was punching out the wall. He is not easily deterred from struggling, trying to push Clint away.

A shudder goes through him as he twists, and ceases with another kick. "The sounds. We can't stop if they trigger us. Wipe us, kill whatever's left." The words are coming out through a gritted wall, the death of hope seeping in. "The agents will kill us. You'll…" A shudder twangs up his back, and the conditioning with its claws in freezes whatever trials attempted to break it in the first place.

Deeper still, the shouts and muffled thumps haven't slowed down in the staccato cracks accompanied by cheery pop music and something that could be a spar giving in.

Kyr practically grits his teeth, swinging his head back to his name without a trace of recognition. He only speaks Russian, that much is evident. Hostility or irritation, all that's left is pure terror at losing the spark of being.

«No one's going to kill you. I won't let them.» Bucky Barnes, assassin, monster, anti-hero, intends to stand against the massed forces of whatever, with only his blue-and-white companion as ally. What he would give for Captain America right now, but he doesn’t have Steve Rogers. «Hold on to it, Adam. You have a name. Keep telling yourself that. Kyr, the same. Here,» and he's taking more of that scrap of cloth that Clint gave him, tearing it. «Put these in your ears. Keep your hands over your ears.»

"This is stupid crazy, you know that right?" Clint asks Bucky in no uncertain terms. "Good thing that insane crazy is on my list." he grunts and tries to listen to the Russian, but damned if he is going to stand being scratched up worse than he is. "You don't calm down, I swear, I'm gonna feed ya to mat metla, Baba Yaga, and her frigging chicken house."

Adam shudders for good measure. The fight isn't out of him, merely shoved to the side. Paralysis is worse for Kyr, worse with the droning memories and the fractured, interrupted process draining volition out. Telling the older of the two soldiers sees to grabbing the cloth and edging over Clint's way, though the way he walks is cat on a hot tin roof. Nerves wound up, it's not good. "Let him go. I'll talk but he's not done right, and he's fighting with all he's got." He grinds his teeth at mention of the chicken house, and everything else, hissing, «Kyr. The other one says put this in your ears.»

"He's right. Barton, let him go," Bucky says, quietly. His throat works, mouth dry. "Please. And remind me to improve your Russian soon. You sound awful."

Fitz retreats several steps, still the lookout for any more troubled men running around the farm or a sudden arrival of a helicopter. At this point, he half expects some MiG to appear over the horizon, or a launched ICBM to crash into the landscape.

Bucky sighs. «I'm James. Or Bucky. Whichever you like.» Maybe the nickname will wring recognition out. «Can you guys hold out? I'll go find the others»

Given the blank frame of reference, clearly the name has as much meaning to the pair as a Nike shoe does for a hare.

"Fine. He sucker puches me, we're gonna have words." Clint releases Kyr for Adam to tend to and draws his pistol. He reads Bucky's body language and can see him turning. "You think you're going alone, you're out of your mind. More than normal." Dry and sarcastic, the archer moves to follow after the augmented soldier.

Kyr stumbles back a step and springs into a defensive position without even trying, his hands clapped over his ears. It takes a lot of forcible wrestling that's by no means gentle for Adam, marginally more functional, to wedge in the cloth. Whatever uneasy fellowship they built over armchairs and regular meals under psychological observation doesn't replace what they are. Whatever founded them. Wherever they were roosted. But Kyr practically scrambles away through the wound in the wall to fall to his knees in the dirt, leaning over until his brow touches the ground. The hoarse, animal shriek of fury and rage holds so much formless pain.

Adam isn't much better, sagging against the wall, palm pressed to the head wound. The interior is a strange sight in an agricultural facility. The lack of anything agricultural, for one. It's dark past the corridor, little daylight streaming in. Lino floors and plain military standard grey-green walls, and someone's put a truly hideous paisley couch at the corner. It has a few magazines, heavily edited, four years out of date about sports.

Bucky’s voice is light, almost humorous, and all the more dangerous for it, "I'm going to kill them all," he asides to Barton. "All of the people who did this to me, to them. I don't care who I have to enlist -- SHIELD, the CIA, Steve, the Devil himself. This is going to stop." Bucky's tread is swift, just the kind of lope that Clint's quick stride better keep up with. He slings his rifle back, but he's got a knife in hand. Less likely to go immediately lethal, compared to long arms fire. "Let's clear the buildings, then search underground."

The bow rests easy Clint's left hand, and he makes a double time pace, trying to ignore the ache in his forearms and his shoulder from blocking several of those hits. "So this is what they mean by 'funny farm', huh?" he comments quietly, coloured in dismay. "All right. If we're going down, let’s be clear, you duck and I shoot. You may have that new arm. But I doubt you’re all bulletproof."

"Woulda made the war a hell of a lot easier," Bucky mutters. God, he misses Steve.


	7. Unfortunate Brothers

Not much room for two men of their size to go side by side. About ten meters down the corridor, they'll either trip over a hideous decorative table or crush it to pieces, given it's strewn sideways. Other furniture spills out from a door clearly barricaded by some effort. It leads deeper into the building, given the outer wall traces their trajectory. Ahead lies the scent of coffee, and the wet puddles underfoot if they continue further east indicates something dropped. A smaller open room probably served as a lounge of sorts, though it's pitch black. Windows aren't exactly common. A few other doors can be felt more than seen, all locked. Security counts at a SHIELD facility. Even one that seems to resemble something vaguely barracks or dorm-like.

"A'right, Barton," Buck agrees. It's true. "It’s not like you’re bulletproof either, Barton." It may gall him, but he hangs back to allow the archer to precede him down the hall. His voice rises to make a clear call. "SHIELD personnel, this is Barnes and Barton. We're here to assist." So much for Winter's legendary stealth. But when you've already blown cover by setting off your own kids or clones to scream at the top of their lungs, that's kind of redundant, anyhow.

"So? You’ve got a gun and a fist. I can actually hit things more than arm’s reach away." Clint shrugs his shoulders. He gives a careless grin as he advances, pointing the arrow low to the ground. "Why do you think I’ve got the clearance you don’t? Fast thinker and fast on the fingers, man." Ahead of him, the gloom unfurls in smudged silhouettes, nothing immediately resolving with a lack of daylight. "Getting darker. You got a light, or should I just go all Zippo?"

No one answers except the loose, cheery tones of Dusty Springfield from a functioning radio, a speaker buried in the labyrinth. Her smooth croon is enough to wash away weariness. It's enough to make someone scream, a distant tremor without a chorus.

"If you gotta light, do it," Buck agrees, jaw tight, whole body coiled. He'll let Clint advance, but kicking in doors is his business. That scream has him raising his head. "Which direction did that come from?" His hearing suffered no little amount during the war. Once. It’s better than it was -- the damage from Rabat and Monte Cassino undone by German efforts.

"It's down a ways. Damn, we may have come in the ass-end, Bucky,"Clint admits. Tucking his arrow into the quiver for a moment, he breaks off one of the table legs and wraps some cloth around it before taking out his lighter and flicking it a few times to catch the cloth aflame. "Let there be light, heh," he grins slightly, holding out the torch to Bucky. “Take this. I need my hands free. What’s with the oldies, anyways?” He starts to pick up the pace. "We get close to a speaker, shoot that shit. I hate Dusty Springfield. Give me some Dylan."

Past the barricaded door and the coffee puddles, the hallway continues before jogging to the side of the building. Highly unexciting, all in all. The pair of doors set close together probably lead into some kind of storage room or janitorial closet, a space of equivalent size. The cries have settled out, not necessarily a good thing. For all anyone knows, Adam and Kyr have run off Thelma-and-Louise style.

"Never heard the guy," Buck says, distractedly. He reaches out for the torch, makeshift as it is. "Me? I got no idea what people listen to these days. I kinna miss Benny Goodman, honestly. He still around?" He's all bristling unease and desperate seeking, like a Border Collie jacked up on bennies. Someone won't be able to rest until all seven dwarves are accounted for. "You get the door, or I will?" It's unpleasantly reminiscent of clearing Nazi bunkers with Steve.

As he makes his way down the hallway, the archer is taking it all in. "Benny Goodman? Now you sound like my old man." Clint grouses good-naturedly. "Don't you listen to that down at the VFW or something?" Once Bucky is firmly in position, he gestures. “Be my guest.”

Without hesitation, Bucky swings a punch with all the force he can muster to knock the doors off their hinges and hopefully break the barricade.

Metal creaks. Furniture hauled up against the door comes spilling out when the hinges give, and a chunk of the wall. Plaster dust rains down, and pillows, folding chairs, a TV tray, and even several books still attached to shelves in a crooked case crash down. So much for stealth, there's no way around that. The debris mounts up and several long gouges mark the walls and floor for the rushed job. This probably served as a place for reading, normalcy, a  _living_ room in the truest sense of the word. Never mind two walls are one-way glass, right down to the curtains it feels like somewhere in Peoria or Trenton or one of a hundred small cities. Scranton, with its happy trains.

What initially looks like motor oil isn't. Speckles of blood and a smeared line on the wall lead through another broken door.

After they’ve busted in, Bucky holds out the flaming table leg. The blood trail makes him wince. He sighs, "Never been to the VFW, not yet. Considering I'm still a traitor on the books." A hasty beat and he adds, "It’s better they think I’m dead, all said and done. The Russians don’t know, and that’s for the better." A hand signal towards the next broken door. “There's two out of the seven prisoners accounted for, even if they've headed for the hills.”

"Yeah, about that. Winter Soldier business? You weren't yourself, right?" Clint reminds him as the doors part to the sides and the archer steps through. "You seeing any bodies?" he asks. "I'm seeing blood, but I ain't seeing who it belongs to."

With Bucky reminding him of the count, he nods. "Yeah. Which means it's five on two. Poor bastiches." There's a frown as he walks by one of the speakers, and he takes out his pistol, shooting it once as he continues on. "You ain't heard of Dylan? What about Johnny Cash? Now that's some damn good music. 'I Walk the Line', 'The Troubadour'? Shit could have been written about you."

The uncompromising tumble of flame fed by the metal case shows the destruction done. Leaping shadows highlight the damage, the trail of blood seeping out and the footprints leading to another smear of a handprint on the wall. Out of a reading room and into the fire, though not literally. Past an observation point, there's a dead man lying there, eyes facing up to the sky. It doesn't look like Bucky. His neck is snapped, arm at an unnatural angle. Another body is heaped over a shattered chair.

There's a little vertiginous wrench at himself - that relief. It isn't fair. Those were humans. Fellow works with SHIELD. Or are they? Bucky hurries to inspect them, see if they're victims, or if some of this attempted coup was the work of enemy agents. "Fuck," he says, under his breath. "This is all wrong."

"Yeah, well, it may be all wrong - but that's how this shit usually goes." Clint kneels down near the nearest body, feeling the pulse - and the warmth of the body. "Ain't cold yet." he grunts softly as he moves to stand up while Bucky does a more thorough check and starts to sweep the rest of the room. "Olly olly oxen free."

The first agent, the one with the cracked spine, won't be drawing another breath. The immediate look of his injuries suggests someone unlikely to have had a little accident. Neither does he display the signs of torture, merely a brutal efficiency to put him down. The other visited in the chair has practically no pulse to speak of. It takes Bucky some time to locate the weak throb, erratic as it is. Suits and common attire imply SHIELD affiliates, but it's hard to know. A search of a jacket might bring up a passcard, level 4 SHIELD access. Respectable, but not Steve or Peggy levels.

The rest of the room is cramped and small. The flickering torch gives a glimpse of the overturned furnishings, the rampage that blew threw fast as a foehn wind off the Alps. No one's sitting in the corner with a handkerchief over their face, waiting.

"This one's alive. For now," Bucky's voice is matter of fact, grim. Not sanguine about his subject's chances, as he picks himself up. He holds up the SHIELD passcard as a token, before trying to move the man into a better position. That's no way to go, flung over a chair like an old towel.

"Yeah, well, until we know where your brothers are, carrying him around ain't gonna do either of us much good." Clint says with a frown. Much as he hates to leave the man down, it ain't for the best to handicap themselves further. "You got yer earplugs ready? Though it seems they're a lot more broken on the catchphrases than you are."

Three minutes, thirty-nine seconds, the agent tipped upright will pass from this world, a little better than he met the floor. Before then they've got only one option out and that's a door covered by a cracked veneer. Someone obviously shut it, and the absence of a handle is particularly concerning. No sounds of music or shouting in here.

"I got 'em," Bucky says, and there's a kind of weariness beneath his tone. But he squares up on the door. "Gonna have to kick it down. You ready for me to play battering ram, Barton?" The Soldiers beyond the door await. Unless they've fought things like Baba Yaga herself, he's going to be a hell of a surprise.

Clint's mouth twitches in mild irritation. "Take it we're still playing with kiddie gloves?" he asks as he moves towards the door. Snorting at it for a moment, he decides to add to the confusion by starting to chant a particularly jovial French nursery rhyme in as low a voice as he can manage. It might sound like an occult chant without, you know, actually summoning anything.

They’re both lucky for the absence of Kess and Fitz. Neither agent would likely take well to hearing an ominous caterwaul about Frere Jacques.

Indeed, the former Soviet operative sharply snaps his head to the side to look at Clint. He raises an eyebrow in pointed inquiry. The flaming makeshift torch he carries does not alleviate the surreal effect, good ideas piled on bad. He gives another hard punch to the door to knock it off its hinges.

Clint continues his ridiculous chant, drawing his bow up in case of any resistance on those on the other side.

The children of the Soviet Union aren't likely to know an occult chant from the Bahamaian national anthem. Chanting is chanting, and probably a sign of terrible music and capitalist morality. The door is abominably resistant to punching, too. The sheeted glass beneath probably resists bullets, and punches, and supernatural creatures. Thus Bucky's bunched metal hand hurts it, makes a few cracks, but doesn't shatter it.

" _Lenta_ …" calls a distant speaker, swinging back into a jazzy little tune. "  _Tyaga_ …"

He shouldn't get mad about this. But time's a-wasting, and he drops the torch to blaze away on the floor. Bucky hurls himself against the door, metal shoulder first to create a tremendous clamour. To be heard over that noise requires yelling in Russian, «Guys. Hey. Open this. Help us out!» Like they're going to listen.

"Bucky, what are you…" Clint sighs. Nothing else has gone the way it's supposed to tonight, why wouldn't Bucky go a little nutso too? Stepping back, he waits to see if they actually respond to the Winter Soldier. After all, he's the outsider here -- American, sane, suave -- in a way.

Almost unheard are the faintest of responses through that heavy door, something metallic. Another crackle of sound is preciously quiet, hard to pick out from the softly playing radio other. The moan melts into the background. The door remains intact, a barrier to their goals.

Bucky actually growls, under his breath. Amazing how lupine that sounds, almost accurate to a fault. Then he's punching at the door himself, again and again, willing it to come down. At first the blows land with precision, and then a blinding rage.

The track of the hardened metal point sinks towards the ground. Clint eases the tension on the string slightly. "Whoa whoa. You want the door open, I can get that. I’ve got another explosive arrow. Why don't you take a time out?" he offers, preparing to aim past Bucky if they need another route to get through. “It _might_ be a good idea for you to run back around the corner, just saying.”

Spiderwebs form in the bulletproof casing covering the door, spreading against the surface. Deepening dents fly out from the initial impact craters, jack-frost tines going jagged. The metal core opens to the force of Bucky's fist nailing the door, again and again. Shuddering in its frame, the portal eventually has to surrender, though it was intended to withstand point blank rifle rounds. It won't be slow, leaving a cold sweat on the skin and venom dancing in the veins. When it comes to pieces, oh so slowly, there's no light within to render any hint of what should be there.

Nothing but the cold, pitiless light of a black snub-nosed pistol spitting its retort at the SHIELD agents who might have wit enough to flinch at the last moment out of sight. Another follows, another, rapid fire from a rather weird angle to be sure.

The moans are met with a shuffle, a roll in the night-dark pitch filling the place. Two active, at least.

There's not even a shake of his hand, no scuffing or breaking the vibranium knuckles. But as the door starts to yield, Buck does move aside for Clint. Muzzle flare is an indicator of trouble, and he snarls, “Get back!” Flinging up his own arm before him to deflect any bullets that might come his way, he lunges for the place he's guessing the last shooter might be. «Calm down,» he barks. «We're not your enemies.»

As soon as he sees the first muzzle flash, Clint  _bodily_  throws himself aside. The wall takes several hits, pockmarked by the unfriendly answer. "They're fucking shooting me! What was wrong with my singing? That ain't exactly the welcome wagon offering up a peach pie, Bucky!" he growls as he turns his attention back to the darkness. "You don't stop, I'm gonna get mighty fucking cross with the whole lot of you, and you won't like me when I'm cross."

For good measure, he fires into the dark, and hears a loud yelp for his troubles.

The next bullet flies off Bucky's arm, and another embeds into the door frame from the same click. Whomever is firing is accurate, mobile enough. Warnings and curses in English have no bearing here. Only the purposeful directive played out, and a shadow melting into another patch of darkness to the double-strike of heavy boots on the ground, movement in rapid tempo.

It's the dance of shadows in the mirror -- movement and mass so like his own, surely. Bucky rolls and lunges again, coming up out of it like a low tackle. He had some training in blind-fighting, so the lack of light isn't the hindrance it might otherwise be. He takes down one of the shooters, finds the gun by feel and wrenches it away with his metal hand. It turns with in the alloy grip; he'll use it as a bludgeon if he has to.

«Stand down!» he yells. «Stand down. I've got one of you.»

"I don't know what you're telling them, but you need to tell them louder!" Clint grouses. He pulls out his own pistol and fires a single shot in the ceiling, leaving a scorched circle of fading orange embers. Benefits of Fitz’s technology, there. "Tell them that they can shoot me if they want to see what my gun does to them?"

That damn soldier is practically on the ceiling, and the extraordinary stealth may be compromised by the muzzle fire and the retort. No matter. Bucky won't be perfectly holding someone for long, the torn shirt sliding over rippling muscle and someone prepared to lash out with one hell of a mule kick. The almost silent grunt and the hiss of breath mark the efforts to get free, but it's not the same as Bucky. Not exactly.

«Got down,» wheezes that hoarse voice probably done to wreckage from screaming and the tightness of pain. «Tied. Not good…»

«Who tied you?» the agent demands. «Stop fighting me. I won't hurt you. And who else is in here?» He glances over at Clint, fairly certain he can see no better in the ghoulish firelight. «What's your name?» Questions out of order, but his own thoughts are scrambled as hell. «Don't try to shoot the blond guy. You’ll only make him angry, and you wouldn't like him when he's angry.»

"There's still some more of them, ain't there?" Clint's frowning. Unless the SHIELD agents counted, they only found three captives. Four to go. The oddness of three mirror images of James Barnes is a headache he’s not going to address. Leave that to Steve, his pay grade. "Got a light?" he asks, not quite going to get the torch yet. Not while Bucky hasn't given the clear.

The speaker isn't the one fighting to tear Bucky to shreds. From the corner, language extracted from moans most assuredly covers those broken pauses and attempts to project when lungs crackle, oxygen leaking in all the wrong places. Four found. Not three.

Not that the one in the dark is much good at revealing himself, clutching his arms to his stomach and holding onto the red bloody thread to consciousness.

"I'm on one," Buck says, as he keeps up the struggle. "The other guy's hurt. No, I don't have a light. See if there's a switch, something." Four out of seven. He tries to use the pistol butt as a bludgeon, knock out the one still fighting with them.

"Yeah. Switch. Sorry, ain't on my A-game tonight." Clint grunts as he feels around for a switch as he tries to shrug off the shots that winged him at the door. Maybe one was a bit closer than he thought. He'll need some patching up later. "Hey, Bucky. You ever have an evening with a gal, but think it feels off, though you might want to give it a second shot?" he grunts.

No use for the switch, given Fitz managed to sever the electrical source or someone else did. Either way, the place's shadows give cover for the various gear. Clint comes close to running into a contraption splayed out at an angle. No one is getting their perm set or hair washed, but the general feel, shape, and consistency of the chair about matches the reclining seats found in higher-end hair salon. Minus the extra metal bits that ominously jangle and groan.

Taking down one of his own with a pistol takes Bucky time, and takes a bloody savage kick to the upper thigh that probably leaves bruises.

There's a moment of incredulous silence from Bucky, as he tries to knock the lights right out of the guy beneath him. “Barton. Now is not the time. We both survive this, I'll take you out drinking and we can discuss our love lives." That kick makes him grunt, but he tightens his grip and eventually, the blows form the pistol butt do tell. Satisfied he's subdued the one who wouldn't talk, he gets up, staggers sideways, and nearly falls into the chair itself. There's a few beats of blind patting, trying to parse it. «Hey. Kid. Stay with me.» Then he's patting himself down - out comes a battered Zippo, and a hopelessly squashed pack of Lucky Strikes. Bad habit left over from Berlin. The latter are discarded, but he flicks the former alight.

"Yeah. Well, reason I brought it up? This feels like one of them chairs that ya sit in and they give you a really bad perm in." Clint offers with a grunt. "And your hair? That's a pretty bad perm to be getting. Frizzy." he offers with a snort as he looks around. "We still have a couple unaccounted for, eh?"

In another life the one sprawled on the ground clutching his stomach would blink at the loss of cigarettes. He stares at nothing, his pupils fixed in a long stare into the night. Flames fed by liquid shaken up don't do much to change this state, and the fact blood soaks under him suggests the fight in here…

It looks like something out of a phantasmagoric Freudian nightmare. Twinned glass slabs stretch across the floor in a partition, and a chair padded in leather and vinyl holding sufficient buckles to pin down an LSD-stricken octopus. Possibly a kraken, a Humboldt squid super-soldier. That one's empty. The other two chairs behind glass are not.

Headphones spin down from an overhanging arm, clamped over heads of two men who very well are brothers, twins, even. They look precisely the same as James Barnes.

One chair holds the shattered remains of a bottle. Water? Torn and shredded clothing suggest violence in their positions, but they're not moving where they recline. Two agents in one chamber are shot dead, pinpoints in their skulls blasting out brain matter and blood on the walls.

It is a scene out of his nightmares. But Bucky doesn't succumb to the shock of it, beyond a stifled whimper. Then he moves to the wounded man, hurrying to tend him. "Barton," he says, and his voice lacks either the snap of command or the earlier rage. "Please check on the ones there. If they..." He can't bring himself to say it, the one who's left a whole bloody trail in his wake somehow unmanned by the idea that it's his flesh and blood lying dead there. That makes the count six, alive and perhaps otherwise.

"On it." Clint doesn't make a quip this time. He hears it in Bucky's voice. "They ain't you," he reminds him quietly as he moves to start checking on the bodies. "You're the original. Or their brother. Or whatever this is. God, I hope Peggy has  _something_ to explain what the hell is going on or I’m going to be off my diet for weeks."

Neither of the men strapped down respond in the least to poking or prodding. They will wait unto eternity for whatever they wait for. The stillness is disturbing, assuredly, whereas the other wounded one is doing his best to consider rolling over onto his back.

Bucky hurriedly rummages through the cupboards, the pistol he stole hastily stuck through his belt in a way that's rather piratical. Looking for first aid, or cloth - something to staunch the flow of blood. Swearing to himself in Russian all the while. "I know," he tells Clint, distractedly. At least he hopes he knows. "But they're still mine." Yeah, he's got that bee in his bonnet where these askew replicants are concerned.

A cupboard full of white sweat socks, freshly folded and sealed in plastic, might prove most useful. Another holds fresh white t-shirts, folded by someone of a militaristic bent. The next is a square full of records in sleeves, useless, and beyond that several books of a largely fond Americana tradition: Catcher in the Rye, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Call of the Wild, Swiss Family Robinson. Thoreau's Walden. Paper by the handful might help. A few bottles of gel and there's a first aid kit stowed away.

"Don't!" Clint calls out as he realizes something. "They're listening to something.. and they're sedate." He says, gesturing to one of the captives, and the big headphones phones that are on his head. “You interrupt that, you’re going to have some angry evil Soviet twins on your hands. Hand.”

Whatever was streaming through the headphones probably died when the power did. Nonetheless, the solid setup of the rig and warm metal suggests active use.

"Right," says Buck. He snags the aid kit, and then socks and shirts. A glance at the rig, and his lip lifts in what looks like a snarl. But his attention is still reserved for the wounded man, and he ends up kneeling at his side. «Lie still,» he tells him. «I'll help.»

Stepping back, Clint pulls a cigarette out and flicks his Zippo to life to light it. "We're still short one, ain't we?" he asks curiously as he turns to check. "I'll go check in the other direction while you deal with the ones here, if you want?"

Misery shines in those glassy eyes that can't bear the flames. He's not one to fight the way Kyr and Adam were, or the unconscious one on the floor. Blood, blood, so much blood. The gut shot is an ugly thing, especially given he's winged on the bicep and another went clear through his shoulder. Sweat stipples his brow, slick on his hair. The young man fades in and out of consciousness. «Yeah.» Russian. All the damn Russian.

The two sedated ones fail to respond.

"Please," Bucky says, again. It's not knee-jerk politeness, but genuine begging, and it's as much to the guy on the floor as it is to the big red friend. "If you can, Barton, yeah." He's working to try and patch up the one he has in hand, the hands calm and deft for all that his brow's shining with stress. «Keep talking. Tell me your name. I'm James. James Yegorovich.»

With Bucky tending to the others, Clint draws back and starts out the door to head towards the path not taken by them earlier. With Bucky not here, though? The pistol comes out. He's a little tired of being shot at tonight, after all. And if he has to use the explosive arrows, the killing arrows, well, shit happens, right?

Names. Names? This is something that matters. "O-orel," he repeats to Bucky. "«Call me… Orel.»" Eagle, of course. Fits that his hair is faintly lighter, richer brown with hints of gold in there. "«Flying. I should… Should be flying.»"

Clint has his own trouble to find. Out that door lies the sunshine of an afternoon and a SHIELD helicopter. Right? Fitz must be somewhere else too. The rest of the site lacks for anything so exciting as a tyrannosaur rampaging around or a hell of a gunfight. If he gets ten feet past the barracks, Kyr and Adam are concealed against the lee of a building, shaking with fatigue and adrenaline.

Standing outside for a moment, Clint frowns. Alright. There's the chopper. But... still a man short. Oh hey. He gets eyes on the other two. Lifting his fingers to his lips, the bloodied archer with a tattered jacket blows sharply to whistle out to them. "Yo! Adam! James found a couple more of ya, he needs yer help with them, ‘cause fuck this place, that's why. One of you know how to fly that thing?"

«We'll have you flight ready again, soon, Orel.» Bucky assures him, smiling at him, even as he works. He has all the bedside manner of a piece of gravel, but then, he was never the Commandos' medic. There's a soft, murmured prayer in English to the powers that be. Even if it's far, far too far away for any real help to come on that front. It makes him feel better, anyhow. Swiftly blood splatters all over his own fatigues as he works.

Poor Orel, that gut wound is an ugly one. His hands are smeared with his own blood, but he's been applying pressure. «Don't have any wings.» His smile is a fatally thin thing, eyes crinkled at the corners in pain. Oh, it hurts. Hurt is real and good and painful. It's still alive, the only sign he has. Prayers mean nothing for him as he grits his teeth, hissing, moaning at the rattling pain. «Not yet. One day maybe.»

“Yo. Adam.” That doesn't get an immediate response. Call it a curse of a name. Having a name is instinctive for most people. They respond the instant someone speaks it. Not really so for the pair looking for their fastest way out of harm's way. In the daylight, Clint doesn't look any better than the abattoir he departed from, attired darkly and carrying that bow. Kyr shrinks back.

Adam, bloodied from a gashed head wound, wears a frown on his face. "It's not ours," he says slowly. "We don't take it."

Clint gives a snort and grumbles. "Swear to shit this is Bucky paying me back for trying to sell Cap's shield at the Christmas party," he offers. Approaching the two ready to bolt requires a bit more tact. "Bucky! Get up here!" he calls down the tunnel. "Those two new-yous we found earlier are being about as cooperative as you usually are!"

Karma is a wheel, and time a flat circle. "I gotta wounded man down here, Barton," Bucky says. "Here, c'mon and carry him, we gotta get 'im to the bird. I'll ride herd on the other guys." He apologizes to Orel for the noise, and turns his head, bellowing a summons to Kyr and Adam in his flawless Russian. «Adam, Kyr, please come here. I need your help, I've got a man down.»

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Clint grouses. "If I find out that you made these clones the old-fashioned way, I'm gonna smack him in the head so hard." With a grumble, he makes his way down towards the wounded man. He slings the bow over his back into its holster and kneels down, eyeing Orel up.

“Look, kid, I’m getting you to safety. Try not to move around so much cause you aren’t looking very good.” He repeats himself in Russian as he hoists Orel into his arms. So much for that tunic.

* * *

 

Nu-you doesn't mean anything to the pair outside, basking in the sunshine deprived for who knows how long. For his injuries, Adam is the more coherent. Kyr still has hands clapped over his ears, as if the shot speakers and pulled wires will betray him in the end. They don't comprehend Clint's English blathering. They do understand the Russian, alert, eyes sharper.

Orel is not a happy person being carried, snarling and spitting curses like tacks when lifted. The abdominal shots were precise, after all. Behind the archer go the other soldiers.

"No, we're missing one. We got the two guys napping downstairs for now, the one guy I knocked out." Worry. Once upon a time Bucky didn't worry. He had no responsibilities, beyond a rickety Rogers. And then the war. "Let's get these guys to the bird." He'd better not be the only tactician present. "We'd better hurry, or the guy I knocked out's gonna wake up, and I don't want to fight him again."

Bucky's already limping from that blow to his leg. To Adam and Kyr, he says, «We're gonna get out of here. What's the last guy's name? And do you know the names of the others back there? The man I fought, the ones lying down?»

"Come on, little Bucks." Clint says as he starts to lead the line of Buckys towards the helicopter. He struggles a little with Orel; the bleeding soldier presses his hands to the wound like it might do a lick of good. "Stay close." he warns. "If the last one's armed, out here in the open, he's bound to take a potshot if he thinks we're trying to kidnap these people. Damn shame we can't use these loudspeakers to call out to him."

And then the war. Everything changed after the war. Balance of power and beliefs. Soldiers never go civilian fully. The two Russians support one another, arm around the waist or shoulder as needed. Together they're almost a full person.

«Can't leave the ones down there. You gonna take them?» asks Kyr, plainly concerned by this turn of events.

«We're going to go get them,» Bucky promises, giving Kyr a look. «No man left behind.» Like he was. «But I want you guys to get to our transit out. This place clearly isn't safe. All this damage? Was it guys like us, when the words were used on us? Or did enemies come?» 

His suspicion is for the former, all the little Faithful Ruslans unleashed to savage those trying to tame them. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility that there are Widows and Wolf Spiders in the woods. It's enough to make the skin on his back crawl, as if feeling the weight of gazes through scopes on him. "Whoever did this would’ve used it to fuck us over," he says, sadly. "I'm still a fucking maniac when they do that."

Kyr grimaces and Adam's eyes glass, thinned by a bitter drink of truth. No one likes to think those thoughts. They don't want to do those things. Adam's hand spontaneously forms a fist, biceps and triceps bulging under the thin shirt he wears. «We weren't downstairs. The agents are here to help. They keep us in though. Could be one. But we were trying to get away. We knew what the sounds meant.»

«Death,» mutters Kyr, staring flatly at the ground. «I'm not good enough. Not enough. Not…»

«Stop it.» Adam sucks in a brutal breath, his lungs a bellows catching all the oxygen he can't possibly use. «The others are not as far. Not as good. That's what they say.»

Carrying his Bucklone under his arm, Clint loads him out the helicopter. "All right. You ain't going alone. So. Any idea on asking these guys on where your last you is holed up?" he asks as he frowns. This shit's weird enough without all the other Buckies.

«You're fine, Kyr. You're doing great. You have a name and you're living up to it, and I'm your older brother. You have family now, and I'm it.» Bucky’s tone is stubborn, insistent. He near believes it, from empty veteran with no apartment to a man inheriting a pack of younger brothers.  _ What is Steve going to think? _

He pushes the notion away. Horror and exhilaration are too volatile a concoction for Bucky to emotionally process right now, soaring from one high to a staggering depth. What a spectacle they have to make, approaching the helicopter. He beckons to the agents still stationed by the bird. 

* * *

Agent Fitz is nowhere to be seen, making his way around the building to disassemble the last of the speakers in their vicinity. He isn’t quite fool enough to stray very far, but the recovery mission calls for checking that no sniper lurks around the corner. Just in case.

The helicopter off the property is a fair hike, the rotors still spinning and the navigator keeping a keen eye out. Binoculars help with that. Kess, the SHIELD agent who brought them out, has already retracted the launch lines, sitting with a pistol in hand and no doubt of her willingness to use it. She points it straight at Clint as he marches up. "You tell me the status of that guy or else I shoot first, and question later." Hi, nice to meet you too.

Bucky informs the crew and Kess of the situation in brief, jaw tense, gaze flat: “I got several of the patients, they’re injured, and personnel inside are down. Someone might be on the loose inside. Barton and I mean to go clear it, and then we’re out.”

The grim expression makes him look that much more like the clones. While he speaks he keeps his back to the guys from SHIELD, keeping an eye on the field in front of them. Instinct says something worse is going to happen -- some part of his hearing tuned for the rattle of small arms fire, or the ophidian hiss of an oncoming rocket.

Between them, Kyr and Adam can manage another a few steps together. Seeing three Sergeant Barnes converge is enough to send one of the agents leaning out the window. Adam licks his lips. «Not safe here. Not good to linger.»

«I hear you,» Bucky says wearily. «But we gotta bring 'em in. No one gets left. Where could the last man be?»

One down by violence, check. Two downed by headphones, check. Two up there, clutching one another, check. Numbers are adding up mostly right.

Bucky and the two Bucklings quacking their way afterwards have that odd, distant look in their eyes. Orel perks up a little, as though he means to make a run for Ontario in that bird, if he knocked everyone out. Alas, not today and he is not really in a condition to protest.

Adam murmurs, «He can be anywhere. Melts into nothing.»

"Go ahead, sweetheart. Shoot me. All you're going to do is piss me and my new friends here off." Clint snaps back to Kess. The archer gives a grunt and glowers at the senior agent. "Guy bleeding out of his gut ain’t going to do a thing. They're fine. And with me. Now we're gonna see about finding the missing Buck so we can unass this AO and you and Spook Team Six or whatever can burn it to the ground."

"The two guys walking? The smaller one is named Kyr, and he's still bothered by the attempt at using the loudspeakers to revive their programming. The bigger one is Adam, he speaks English, and he's not under programming," Buck rattles off the facts quickly as he can while remaining coherent. "The wounded man is Orel, no English, seems emotionally stable. Bad shape physically, if you've got contact with base, let 'em know we will need a medical team ASAP on landing,"

A breath, and he goes on. "We've got two sedated and one I knocked out back in the building we came out of. Programming status unknown, but the guy I was fighting with didn't seem real happy to see me." Then his gaze snaps back to Adam, and his eyes widen. «….Adam, do you mean that literally? Does he have some kind of superhuman ability?» That idea throws him. James the default has about as many actual superpowers as a pan of dirty dishes. But apparently the Russians have gotten very baroque indeed in the variants.

"Sure. You keep thinking that." Kess doesn't blink twice. No abominable snowman yelling at her, she handles the situation as much as anything else. Her smile has a sharpness given to glaciers and teeth that should really be serrated for the force they deliver. "We're not burning Site I down unless the Director authorizes that. I guarantee that won't happen until we get eyes on everyone and land stateside."

Her glare intensifies slightly at seeing the masses. Well, it's not as though they were unprepared for coming back with birds. A nod follows and the radio in the navigator's hand crackles to life. "We're going to have to cuff the conscious ones as a precaution. It's not sedation. You get to keep them under control or else we take additional measures. Especially given that." Kess speaks Russian. Surprise! Not. Half the intel community probably does. The Cold War dictates the terms.

Adam twitches a nod. «It's Nikita who knows best. They trained. Countermeasures.»

"What's the plan, Bucky? We leave the wildcard out there for someone else? Because, sounds to me, someone's a bit of a nosy Nancy." Clint gives a snort towards Kess. "By the way.. you're kinda hot when you're angry." he says to the woman, before waiting to see what Bucky has to offer.

«Fuck me sideways,» says Bucky on a breath. «Which one was Nikita? One of the sleepers? Or the guy I knocked out?» He pushes his hands through his hair, loosening the binding; it is only a low, loose ponytail now. No wonder he keeps it long, it helps them distinguish him when the arm's covered. Idly, he rolls up his left sleeve to expose as much of it as possible, an even better signifier. «Adam, Kyr, they're going to cuff you, in case the programming tries to bite back. It's going to be okay.» As if his mere insistence will bring them to trust by sheer force of will.

Kess's last comment makes his eyes go cold and flat, and it's very nearly Winter himself staring at her.

To her credit, Kess takes what she gets without flinching much. Her jaw tightens.

Bucky does not blink, the basilisk stare narrowed in. "Understood. But I consider them a very personal responsibility. I dunno if you're getting all this clearly, but Adam's telling me the guy we haven't found has some kind of supernormal ability."

A shake of his head to the archer. "No. We find him. Even if I have to play bait. God only knows how far he'll get and what kind of trouble he'll cause if we leave him now. We've also got the other three to deal with. Gimme some cuffs and restraints. I'd rather subdue them while they're all out."

"Aww, honey, can't I buy you some pliers to pull the stick out your ass so you do the paperwork for me?" Clint asks. Really, do you want to see a archer do paperwork? He's lazy when it comes to that. He blows a kiss at Bucky. “Keep your cuffs and whips game to the bedroom, Barnes. My virgin ears, man.”

"Sure it did, Barnes. Take it up when you get back and it gets added to the files. Both of you have full debriefs," Kess says quite flatly. Protocol goes hard in the grand old agency. Clint gets them in trouble with that sass. Nothing like spending hours recounting movements in triplicate, filling out forms, and playing with sand tables. That goes about as warm as she gets with a Soviet assassin and an archer.

«Nika's the guy in a chair,» Kyr chatters. He already girds himself for the thing Bucky reasonably asks, a flystung horse on a fraying lead. Adam can't help with this, especially given Kess is the one who has to get the cuffs and tosses them to the blond archer. Neither of them is particularly happy. Orel is simply too hurt to care, clinging brutally to consciousness and biting his white mouth.

«You don't get it.» Orel tries to wheeze it out, blood around his mouth mixed with phlegm. Hurts, badly. «Nikita keeps him. Don't know how. We didn't get too close. Different missions. No Nikita? No him. Nikita keeps him around. Stable. Not a ghost.»

Clint glances towards Bucky, expecting some variety of translation. "So. You're saying someone mixed up a you with some what -- mutant DNA or some shit? -- to make a super you? Could be worse, I guess. Could have used her." He gestures back at Kess.

Kess smirks. "No one wants me to take over the world."

"Shit fire and save matches, as my DI used to say," Buck's expression veers ever closer to 'Kick Me' levels of despair. «All right, Orel, I read you. Nikita's the key. Lean back, rest.»

"Our boy here," he jerks a thumb at Orel, "Says that one of the sleepers, Nikita, was tied to the one with powers somehow. Barton…” The stress fractures sound clear in his voice. “Sounds like it, doesn't it." He wipes his face with his hand. "So, we go back in and restrain the three guys. They're pretty heavily still under the programming, from what I hear. And you're right, keep an eye out, this kid could be literally anywhere."

"What did they feed you to shit fire?" comes Clint's question.

"Gasoline and vodka, interchangeably. Depended where he was stationed," Kess mutters, waiting for the cuffs to be administered. She doesn't like it, that much is simple.

The brunet soldier maintains his watch, scanning the horizon for motion of any kind."I don't know what your ultimate directive is on this one, but my suggestion is that you guys wait here, tend him, and let me see if I can summon up Ghost Seven. But if you need to, leave. We can survive here on our own while you get backup, if need be. Get Fitz out, get the wounded out."

Kess is an agent loyal to her agency and that means swallowing lemons at times. Barton she can ignore, imminent threats to her people, a bit less. "You have two more? Great. Get them tethered in and we'll keep these two under advisement. Anyone seen heads or tails of handlers, support staff? We should have a complement of ten here."

The survey of things is poor, which hastens Clint helping the other crewmen get the duplicates in. Orel isn't going anywhere but death quick, and the other two may be considering, how fucking insane Winter Zero is, all things being fair. Kyr is close to going down to his knees, barring being stuffed on the chopper. That means being lashed in with the netted buckles to a jump seat. Good enough.

"Three more," Buck specifies. "One loose fighter, two under some kind of sedative effect. We've only found SHIELD bodies so far. Two, I think?" He looks to Clint for confirmation. And then grins humorlessly at the question. "Old saying, had a redneck DI from Tennessee when I was in boot camp."

“You know the weirdest people. Don’t tell me he pissed Jack Daniels too for a molotov,” Clint mutters.

Bucky hooks the restraints to his belt and turns back. "C'mon, Barton. Once more into the breach, right? Let's go get the Sleeping Beauties."

Clint gives a grunt and glances towards Kess. "Keep frosty," he offers to her. "Especially the vodka." And with that, he's following after Bucky to head back towards the station.

The problem is that one of the sleepers is the key to the last, the seventh, the obdurate little mystery. Buck helps with the restraining of his brethren -- hands behind, and feet, too. He knows know to wreak havoc even with bound wrists. Just ask the techs with the broken jaws and the crushed throats, the first casualties of Winter's terrible infancies. His first kills were the careless among his handlers.

* * *

Three accounted for at the helicopter. Two unconscious. One downed for fighting stealthily. And apparently a ghost. How those odds stack up for Clint and Bucky won't be terribly difficult. Two sedated men unconscious on reclining chairs in the warren's heart will not be the most difficult action. No one questions their right to be there. No shots in the dark erupt with a staggered bark, Chinese fireworks spraying out. Simply the smell of death, growing by the minute. Blood is a thick taste.

The room is illuminated by a flashlight cum lantern. "We gotta wake up the sleepers," Buck's lack of enthusiasm can be cut like a knife. "One of these guys is Nikita. Watch my back, and I'll try?" he tells Clint. He's a mess: sweat, blood from Orel, hair coming undone from the tie and straggling around his face.

"All right, but I think Kess is gonna get pissed we take too long." Clint shrugs. "Eh, fuck her. I mean, you can. Though she is kinda hot." A cough at that as he moves to watch over Bucky for now, taking out his bow again. Trusty old friends deserve to be cared for.

Telling the men apart from Agent Barnes, other than by blood, is difficult enough. Same shirts, same trousers, same socks. Whatever happened to the dead agents barely splattered them with blood thanks to Man Down, which is probably a mercy or a proof he was interrupted by the wall ripping open upstairs. Strobed flashlights reveal the degree of clinical precision used even against Clint when they entered.

Bucky pauses at sight of tattoos on one, the pushed up sleeve revealing ink. A mental check made.

“Never wake up these sorts without warning,” he says. A handwave illustrates the threat, given both unconscious men have physical development closer to Steve instead of the typical assassin of Soviet make.

"Not even with your dick," retorts the brunet. "I've got a wonderful sweetheart back home, I don't need a harpy instead." He taps the nearest one experimentally on the arm, just above the elbow. Shakes it, like a mom trying to rouse a dozing child. Only then does he reaches for the headphones that are apparently keeping them under, and lifts them gently from the somnolent soldier's ears, before tapping him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, well, lucky you." Clint offers with a snort. "Met a hot little number with platinum blonde hair, but she didn't seem all that interested." He shrugs, but when he notices Bucky starting to rouse the soldier, his hand tightens on the string of the bow, ready to draw it at a moment's notice.

Not a sound from the headphones. Whatever put them under made certain to not to wake them up again. The unconscious duo are as tuned out as someone pumped full of drugs, or driven into a comatose high. Shaking fails to dispel their beauty sleep.

The archer leans down, peering at the body sprawled on the ground. “Three, two, one.” Flipping the victim one-handed, aided by a boot, is hardly an easy task. Long, dark hair spills away from his face. “Goddamn. How many of these boys did they make? He looks just like you. Maybe not quite as fair.”

Hating the feel of the words in his mouth, Bucky tries speaking into the soldier's ear, that litany. «Longing. Rusted. Seventeen..» Maybe that will rouse someone, even if it's a reflex of sheer hatred. He remembers those moments of sputtering fumes of spite catching, the seconds between beginning and ending where some shard of himself could assert its presence.

Nothing to read the pulse, nothing to ascertain the minute changes in brainwave activity or breath. The hateful phrase stirs something in the black abyss but the ignition doesn't fully turn, the outcome of murder in wide, staring eyes yet to be achieved.

The name probably won't work. But he tries it anyhow. "Nikita!" Bucky scowls, trying again with a different set of words. Like a prayer in Russian, his conditioning strives to wake the fallen man so like himself.

_ Does Steve ever see me looking like this?  _ The shuddering unease trickles through his belly. He can barely fathom what the blond will think of this revelation.

Nikita does not rise to the magic touch of Prince Vladimir in the flesh. He is not the beguiled bogatyr waiting the correct blessing to rouse from an enchanted slumber, caused by some wicked offspring of Baba Yaga and a pricklebush.

The last, when stitching over bitter and other words cast into Russian, that the blindest spasm runs through his body.

"Bucky. Look. I get it. You want to save them all. But shit, we can't stand here, waiting. We get facilities back at SHIELD that can help out. I mean, with you watching them. But standing here yelling at them, this ain't getting us… anywhere. Well  _ fuck _ ." Clint grunts and looks at Bucky. "What. Want to get Kess down here to kiss them awake?" He shakes the man on the ground, lifting him up. "They ain't responding."

Bucky turns that despairing look on Clint. Big blue puppy eyes are deployed for effect. "No," he says. "He just did. I heard the words they used here. They aren't the same as mine. Watch him." Then, «Soldier. Can you hear me?»

The dark stirring of those blank eyes cracks. Gummy, maybe, but the soldier does not move. The intake of breath is painfully slow compared to the others. He comes out of that deep, miserable abyss. «Yes.»


	8. Sins of the Father

Rotors churn up the air, throwing a cloud of dust into the air. The engines stirring up a cacophony destroys the bucolic peace of the Québec countryside. Agent Kess sits on the very edge of her seat, the boys strapped in scarcely conscious as the vibrations run through them. Two SHIELD flight crew wait with her, all attention on the low-slung buildings in concrete, red brick, and rusty siding that belong on a postcard.

She stirs when Leo Fitz comes running, hand clapped to his head, a folder in his hand. A blistering curse unfit for good company leaves her lips. No point in shouting over the spinning rotors, though he deserves to be slapped.

Fitz jogs with a limp and he somewhere lost his belt, a large tear gouged up his side of his coat. He waves around the folder and clutches the papers to his chest when the volatile wind from the chopper threatens to blow them away.

“What the hell are you doing?” shouts the pilot.

“Sorry, cutting a little close.” Fitz squeezes through the open door and throws the folder into a bag. A horrified look at the bleeding men webbed in halts him. “They’re all Barnes. Bloody hell.”   
  
Kess grips the metal handle on the wall. “What inspired you to raid a SHIELD facility?”   
  
“Doc’s notes,” he says.

“Why would you risk being shot for that?”

“We need to know the why as much as the how.”

Fitz hangs his head, the chuffed thrill deflating him by inches. Distant figures burst through a wall, managing three bodies awkwardly between them, and the crewmen’s shouts change the tone. Barely conscious patients lift their heads, Adam wearily blinking.

“If they start to fight, shoot them,” Kess snaps.

“I can’t shoot them!”

“Learn!”  Kess bolts out of the bird at a run to meet Bucky and Clint in the battered field.

Stacking the rescued men like firewood suits nobody’s idea of a wise option, but they have little choice. Nikita earns the jump seat and the other two lie unconscious between Bucky’s feet and Clint’s drawn arrowhead. The pilot sets them on a course to American airspace, leaving the abattoir for the SHIELD clean up crews to scour.

* * *

 

Nine hours later, Bucky Barnes sits in a featureless room across a table from Kess and a cohort of SHIELD flunkies, the sorts of grey-suited mandarins that control the purse strings and record every spoken word to dusty memory. There may be worse jobs in the world but few he can think of, other than sewer cleaners in third world mega cities.

No one out and out says the meeting is an interrogation, but rarely does SHIELD bother with complete transparency. For a spy agency, he expects no less, and still their summary attitude about  _ Site I  _ grates on every fibre of his being.

Steve rarely sits through these sorts of meetings. He enjoys a debrief and then retreat for a shower, patching up, and a proper nap. Bucky warrants a cup of coffee and a parade of questions, few friendly.

"Can we expect any other kinds of response? A killswitch, a dead man's switch, perimeter function, or they break out into spontaneous song and dance if the right song plays?" Kess isn't fooling around with her suggestions and one of the functionaries of SHIELD frowns at her ideas. Still, the scriveners do their work with notes and shorthand. Perimeter is an ugly business, established by the Soviets to make an all-out attack if all things were doomed over the USSR. Nothing like a final automatic trigger of all their ICBMs. Everyone has to love that.

Bucky spreads his hands. "I don't know. I'm the crude prototype, and while my programming's been quarantined, I know I haven’t touched all of the conditioning. I've got that open compliance state, the deeper layers concerning objectives. That's why Winter went back to trying to kill Steve before I came into SHIELD custody. We know  _ that _ word, we might not know them all. I've got a shutdown failsafe, which I'm not a hundred percent sure works on them.”

Pencils scratch and a typewriter clanks along smoothly. All the tech in SHIELD and they pick out an electric typewriter from the Triskelion.

“Give us an educated guess, Mr. Barnes,” says one of the functionaries.

“Agent,” Kess corrects him. She earns a point for trying.

Bucky tries not to shrug. Steve always says impressions count with bureaucrats. Sit up straight and smiles, not too much and not too little. Answer questions promptly but not too promptly. He remembered how to handle and even charm these sorts once, except Peggy Carter. The director’s influence shields him even here from the vitriol of the suit shifting unhappily in his chair. 

He takes a breath. “My guess is that the less of their conditioning broken, the better it'll work on them. Adam seems to resist well. But I'm sure they've refined things since me. So nothing's off the table, not with certainly." He hates admitting it, knowing that's a likely death sentence. But the sheer damage they could cause on their own forces a verbal conclusion.

Kess bites her nail. Bad habit, occasionally coming up. "Great. Just more for the psychiatrists to analyse and psychoanalysis to fail to review. In other words, we've got no idea of what we might be dealing with. They told you names, then, or is this your name for him? You implied to Barton you don't know for sure if he was called that." One might assume an agent like her knows whether or not they're labelled more than A, B, C, D, or E. Doesn't come into question here, then. "Same level of talents demonstrated as your own? Anything coming out of their sleeves we weren't anticipating?"

"I was given names. I assume those were names granted by whoever was caring for them," Buck says, leaning back. "Kyr and Adam referred to each other that way. Orel gave me his name. And they, in turn, named Nikita. Basically, Nikita was one of the three unconscious ones. The other two, I don't know the names. The missing seventh one is called Lazar, partnered with Nikita. They said he's a ghost."

Kess has a pretty decent poker face, all told. She sits back in the chair, assessing Bucky across the table. "Kyr, Adam, Orel. Nikita. Lazar -- the ghost. They're all Russian names." That to the gentleman to her left urges him to scribble out more in his notes. She tucks the thin strands behind her ear back, and scratches at her neck. "So here's where we are. A handful of soldiers running amok when not locked up.”

His hands tighten around one another, presented in a clasp on the table.  _ Always keep your hands where they can see ‘em. Projects confidence and shows you got nothing to hide, Buck. Yeah, even the arm _ .

He’ll thank Steve later.

Kess pauses a moment. “You have opinions on this, obviously. On the soldiers, on the site. It goes without saying this is beyond most standard clearance. These soldiers, this  _ site _ , is not open to discussion for anyone less than level five clearance."

"Understood," he says, with an inclination of his head. He's still only level four himself, but. "And yes, I do, obviously." Buck just meets her gaze, expression mild, guileless.

Kess waves her hand. "Then give your seasoned opinion. I promise you nothing but it helps me to understand your background."

Bucky worries at his lip for a moment. "I don't know exactly what form of deprogramming these guys were undergoing. It seems to've worked, at least to some extent on Adam and Kyril. Kyr," he corrects himself. "But I was able to resist because I had persistent memories. I had a life before Siberia, pieces that could be reassembled. I've only really been dealing with Matvei, here in New Yok, and I can't say I've gotten very far. There's no common ground, as far as I could tell when I first interacted with him. The concept of individual identity as pertaining to people who look liks us was alien. That said, even though they don't know who or what I am to them, I am very concerned about their welfare, and willing to do whatever's necessary to help the ones we have. And stop them making more."

The scratch of pens and distant chimes of typewriters capturing every word form a persistent kind of silence, that uncomfortable wool sweater wrapping around a person. Kess doesn't much veer from listening. Active listening is a talent, after all, that engages every sense. Hearing words, stilling sounds, eye-contact all prevail. "Hmm. So no common sense. Sounds like they were given a different background than you. All speculation there. We'll have a conversation about where you come in after we get a few things cleared."

"Right. No false memories implanted, so far's I can tell. Matvei thinks he has parents, but he couldn't tell you their names, or where he really comes from. So I'm only scratch beginnings. They don't look like perfect twins of mine, so clearly they've been tampering with the formula." Which makes him so very uneasy, it's clear. Bucky clenches his hand.

Kess taps her fingers on the side of the legs. "You know, not all twins look the same. Fraternal twins can have similar appearances, not the same features exactly. Same with children. You get those ones who are nearly doppelgangers, and just a little bit different. Don't think too hard over that with your evening nightcap, though."

He nods at that. "I figure," he says, quietly. Buck shifts in his seat. "Anyway. Whatever I can do. The Director's set it up so I'm a real boy now, SHIELD-wise," he adds. "Get the paperwork cleared in a day or so, anyway. I'm entirely at your disposal." He keeps glancing towards the exit, clearly wanting to go sniff over each captive in turn, see how they're faring.

"A real boy." Kess rolls her eyes at that. "Let's review. You came out of the cold wastes of Siberia, showed up here, and refused to take a break ever since you showed up. You're a wind-up toy with no way to unwind, and the more anxious or embroiled you get, the more it turns your key. Take a word of advice. You're never gonna be quite content sitting by when there's something to do. Director may know it too. Probably something in the water. That's the way it looks over here, you know?"

Her assessment gets a little moue of acknowledgement. "Well, you've got my number," he admits, sounding closer to amused than aggrieved. "That's always how I was when I was SSR. And that's how it was in Russia -- no time off for good behavior." Year to year, seeing nothing but concrete and snow and trees, unless he was on a mission, and then it was only the hunt. "And I'm sure the Director knows it."

Kess shrugs her shoulders, the functionaries capturing this too. She isn't one for effusive outpourings of appreciation, either way. "Just a word of advice. Get yourself grounding in a deep cause. Don't let it only be work. There are guys here like that." Their names rhyme with Soul and end in Son, for example. "They eat, drink, and piss the SHIELD life. That's fine, but boy, they forget there may be other great things in the universe too. Peppers stuffed with cream cheese. Having an annual holiday to the Jersey Shore, Christmas at a cabin in the borscht belt. Head full of fantasies of being an agent, keeping the perimeter safe, that's all well and good but not much if we only let that be our idea. Sort of the dead soldier walking theory in action, what some of the shrinks proposed after Vietnam and they've been tinkering with ever since. You don't know what you're fighting for if you don't live it and all that."

Bucky's face softens. "I read you," he agrees, more quietly. "And I'm working on it. I've got friends here. Steve's alive and he's doing just that.” 

Nothing spoken aloud and he knows to his bones she can read the undeniable longing in his heart, the ache in his bones. He pushes on, but Kess has his number on Steve Rogers.

He licks his lips, the words coming fast and sure. “That's what I want them -- those kids -- to have, in the end. They don't have to give two tin shits for the fate of James Barnes, but to have a genuine choice, instead of living like attack dogs in kennels, knowing nothing else? At least the guys in Canada seemed to be working on that."

"You don't know jackshit about them. Remember that. It's not a compromise for what you want, or whatever you hope to have happen," Kess chews a little on the words. Her caution is a thing delivered deadpanned. "You might get love for interference, or hate for it, but you've got a stake in the game. As long as you know what your stake is. Canada isn't your clearance level and I'm not the one who’s gonna compromise her values to set you straight. You want a stake in what they're doing or trading in the Triskelion? Convince the Director to put in a good word, I suppose, and that's all I've got to say. If they decide to grind them all up and erase their files like nothing happened, that's how it goes."

Oh, there's that little flicker of defiance at that. It'll do him no good at all in the agency to have a rep for playing on old friendship with Peggy, and he knows it. A tilt of his head in acquiescence, if not actual agreement. Peggy.

_ Whatever she's become in the near four decades since they were gallivanting around western Europe blowing up Nazis, it's something far bigger than one soldier can divert with a pleading look. _

True, it's more than that. But no organisation lives and dies solely by principles, so much as personal relationships. Whatever tries men's souls in this particular crisis, the valor of the summer patriot isn't about ot be overlooked. There is a richness of consolation to be found in support, in doom, in damn work. Kess waves her hand. "Any other observations you might want to contribute to this drinking session? And here I don't even have a bottle of anything."

Bucky's curl of lips is rueful. "None that I can think of at the moment. If they're like me, they like that awful Russian tea I brought in for Matvei. Am I allowed to see any of the others besides him, if this is above my paygrade?"

"Not til they finish up with assessments. Who knows how long that'll take. Get your request in early in triplicate. You won't be getting near the wounded ones until the docs and shrinks have their say, which we have no timeline for. It'll be sometime before the apocalypse and after dinner." Kess scowls at that. "So don't get your hopes up or your jimmies in a knot when invariably it drags on."

"I know how bureaucracy works. Especially here. I was SSR," he points out, no wise dismayed. "Still technically am, I suppose."

"I'm sure we can find someone to paint that arm or doctor up your papers. That'd be a whole lot more convenient, given all things." Kess doesn't mince words. She pushes the chair back, and straightens, hand resting on her hip. Not the sidearm, anyways.

Bucky looks at the arm. That gleaming betrayal, an alloy tree rooted in him and woven in. "God, I sure could use a cover. The Russians tried to make one that'd let me pass -- that's why it's got human contours." He curls, the plates flex and slide, feigning the bunch of bicep and deltoid. "Never succeeded. I suppose I could ask Mr. Stark."

"Better than gloves. They seem to think we should wear those still to the theatre. Opera length gloves don't help at all." Putting her hand on the table, Kess steadies herself as she gets up. The functionaries hang back, still taking notes. Work before exit, after all. "Stark seems to have enough answers."

"Family tradition," he says, without hesitation. "His dad did. I saw that first flying car prototype he did back in '43. And Tony's even crazier than Howard."

"That doesn't give me a whole lot of hope. I remember Howard drunk at a Christmas party." That's the nice way to put it. Dropping LSD could be a beginning, and maybe not. "Let's make the most of what we got. Get yourself processed or whatever the hell you do when you check in. I'm off for a shower, coffee, and a nap, maybe not in that order."

"Ma'am," he says, politely. Only once she's departed does he heave himself up. Might nap himself - there are empty rooms with bunks in them. Hell, spare cells, if he feels like tempting fate.


	9. Project: Orel

They didn’t play music much in SHIELD medical facilities. Ever since the hack on their communication systems, management invoked radio silence except for the occasional announcement. Darkness emptied out the ward except for a rare few patients and their three to one prescribed staff ratio.

He really would have liked music. Not that Orel could sing a song to save his life, nor knew the first place to begin making any coherent noise. But he remembered something about the catchy hymn he heard once over the high speakers, and longed to hear the beat again.

“Let…. Let’s dance.”

He tapped his finger on the metal railing beside his bed. Three notes, he remembered, and then it all faded away into cobwebs and ashes.

The orderlies muttered every haunted ward felt the worse after sundown. Deep into autumn, the oppressing walls crushed in and no one wanted to make a run for additional cleaning supplies in the basement. Not a soul passed the double doors to a ward with a patient count of one, separated by seven separate cameras and three locked portals.

The young man wrapped in bandages and a crisp white shirt sat up in the creaky metal hospital bed. He flexed his fist, pleased to watch muscles bulge into sharp definition along his pale forearm. A leather cuff chafing his wrist pinned down plastic tubes winding from a flimsy metal stand. The other end of the thong wrapped around the bed railing in fat coils.

He longed to itch at the metal needle plunged into his vein, but removing it twice before angered the bald orderly and upset the pleasant, blonde nurse who smiled on him sometimes when delivering his meals. He regretted his next meal tray missed the green wobbly gelatin that tasted of nothing he could name.

No tray in arm’s reach waited. The empty dishes disappeared while he slept, replaced by the nameless man wearing green cotton clothes. He missed the glaring, impatient orderly watching over everything; a miserable presence like the stories of the Motherland’s champion they whispered in the training cells.

Fine, that his older brothers chattered about, some of them. Never the Hunter, though, he never spoke.

The thought of the avenging comrade, a dusty figment of stories shared in the dark December night, heartened him for a moment. Calm eased the stone blocking his throat.

_ He _ wouldn’t stay sitting in bed with work to be done. Neither could Orel, then, not if the champion wouldn’t. Not with things to do.

“Hello!” he called out, voice pitched to travel over industrial grey machines clustered along the wall and through the secured door. The lone window in his chamber pierced the thick metal barrier.

Neither orderly or nurse looked happy to see him trying to do push-ups on the floor on previous days. Orel smiled to himself. Today would be different, he decided. No more escort to the cavernous bathroom where two men stood by the door as he washed himself down and performed those distasteful duties. The idea pushed him into action.

“I’ve got it! Just food, please.” They would listen. They always did, even when he spoke to bare grey walls and grey tile floor.

Hope cultivated a white smile through tawny cinnamon growth deepening to mahogany at the roots. Ticklish sensations surprised him as stroked his rough whiskers. Where had  _ they _ come from?

He ran a hand through his dark hair, rubbing the greasy slick against his stiff shirt. Shaking his hand out prompted one of the monitors wired to his back under thick gauze bandages to utter a recriminating beep. Another miniature window spiked out of a flattened graphical range, feeding its truths to a distant technician.

_ Possibly someone might answer now? _ He strained to hear, but neither the patter of footsteps or the comforting metal creaking of wheels on linoleum greeted him. Another hoarse shout rippled through the hospital room. “Hello, I’m awake now! Is it time for my training sessions?”

He threw aside the scratchy blankets bleached within an inch of their life. Chlorine wafted into sweat and the dull peroxide bloom. Orel swept up out of bed, yanking along the IV on its tripod wheels. He pulled the overstretched leather and metal cuff clasped to the metal crossbar of his bedframe.

When it split along a ragged edge, the force knocked him forward a step. He rubbed his abdomen at the protesting throb, pleased to find little pain as he reached the door.

Orel peeked through the pane to confirm what he already suspected; no one ghosted outside, hesitant to reveal their presence. He’d prepared a smile anyways. Comrades enjoyed company, but they weren’t  _ trying _ to be rude here. Adam said so the last time they sat together in the gym, days and days ago. Adam knew so much and he never made him feel poorly for not being as comfortable with the strange places they found themselves.

Orel bit his cheek harder. No good thinking about Adam, wherever he might be. A good punch dislodged the metal lozenge replacing a door handle, sending the apparatus skittering across the ground into an abandoned trolley.

He hoped for a plate with more orange wiggly tubes or better yet, the bread and meat the nurse brought to him once. A few bowls full of fuzz didn’t look much like food. He poked something round that crumbled in, emitting a foul whiff that stung his nose.

The machines whirred. Fans turned. His stomach ached in a dull, distant way while his body chewed through the pain relievers and medications that flooded in through his vein. Getting his own food was no trouble. The facility was laid out simply enough. Go straight and turn twice, and he knew he would end up at the big room with the cold boxes full of food.

He passed a few boxes, the empty chairs where guards sat day and night.

Muscles twitched at disuse and he chewed his inner cheek, finding none of the silence of the mind the men in stern grey suits counselled him all the time to seek. He didn’t have headphones, either, and no music, anyways.

“Let’s dance to the song they’re playing…” He tried again to repeat the song he’d heard. The IV stand lagged behind while he trotted up to the first set of metal doors, the ones that burst open like a train billowing steam. The needle slid out and hung by a plastic cord. Orel pushed on the locked door. Sometimes they got stuck, but he leaned in until the very frame crumpled against the thick rubber seal in a cacophonous groan.

“Let’s sway while… while colour lights?”

Was that right? Had to be. He wound around the spilled cloth and debris cluttering the hallway, his bare feet slapping against the cold linoleum. The lights buzzed overhead, humming too loud. Nudging one tore the cage that imprisoned the bulb, and sent the tubes skittering away in so many pieces.

The orderly wouldn’t be happy but how could the guards work that that awful noise? Orel hugged his arm to his side as he moved into the next corridor.

The guard didn’t answer him but this one didn’t slide out of the way, melting back into his shallow niche. He rested against the desk, staring at the monitor or the very important papers fed into funny machines that clinked and clanged when prodded.

Orel knew he shouldn’t touch it, but he slid up behind the portly fellow. Ghosting along the wall required extra care not to step on the glass or metal mosaics sprayed in loose formations, but he placed his feet just so.

Kyr liked to say the champion walked above the ground, creeping fog and snow-mist, but Orel couldn’t imagine that was true. He had feet, he walked. Those boots must be heavy and even mesh and leather hissed a little bit.

_ Focus! _

For all his size, the patient could sometimes fail to draw any attention at all. He froze, throwing wary looks around the hall.

No, the guard had not moved at all, still turned to the sticky glass screen showing different rooms in the facility. No one was doing much moving there. The orderly complained loudest about the late hours when everyone smart was in their bed, not watching over a Russki Marvelous Toy.

He stuck out his finger to one of the round keys. It depressed under his touch, and a metal prong flew up to punch a shape on the white paper in neat black ink. The warm click spread a warm frisson of excitement through his guts, and Orel bit his lip hard to suppress a grin. Just one wouldn’t hurt.

He bolted then before the guard would shout at him and the boxes on the walls crackled alive. His path skirted the hallway and cut sharply left through a funny round room full of corridors, past the station where pretty ladies in white coats drank from white mugs and shuffled papers around. He didn’t see any of them now, but sometimes they all went into a little room and shut the door.

Orel didn’t really understand SHIELD’s routines. He preferred to follow whatever the men in their grey coats barked, and the quiet blonde repeated in her way. At least she smiled. No one ever asked and smiled except her, but he always smiled back.

Another short wing brought him to the door for the food room. He pushed it open enough to see a few people with their backs turned, heads all close together around the big table. Just like Adam and Kyr would, when Evgeniy wasn’t growling at their watchers and trying to put the cutlery up his sleeve. So long ago, now.

Orel chuckled.

He thought to call out to them, but checked himself. No, he wasn’t supposed to or they would walk him back to his bed and press the buttons or pull on the leather bracelets until his wrists ached.

Just a quick dash in and out. He imagined the champion floating over the floor, and tried to slip along. Not really the same as he needed to move around the fallen spoons and broken bits left on the ground, cold and sharp and hard. The champion did important things on farms and streets, and he most certainly would never have to use the countertops for balance to swing his boots over the puddles on the ground.

Next time, he’d tell Kyr there was  _ no _ way the champion of the Motherland sprouted eagle wings or turned into mist. After he had something to eat and his hands stopped shaking.

Good thing someone thought to leave out the funny long bread rolls. See, being nice did achieve things and asking the pretty nurse nicely for more of those sandwiches worked. Orel grinned the wider at the sight of hot dogs in a plastic bag under metal cabinets. He grabbed it and tore open the plastic, grabbing a stale bun.

He’d meant to wait and find the squishy meat fingerling to put inside. Instead, he crammed the whole thing in his mouth and chewed, cheeks puffed out. None of the men huddled around the table looked out, and he only saw the thick orthopedic soles of a nurse poking out from around another table. Well, he’d be gone in a few moments and sneaking back into his room soon enough with no one the wiser.

The bun stuck in his throat as he swallowed but he dragged out another, wincing when his bandages pulled on his knuckles. He tucked the bread into the waistband of his pants. He couldn’t figure out why no one wore things with pockets or pouches here. Americans did everything differently.

He crept up to a dented metal door and opened the fridge. Cool air slid out and kissed his face. Stepping free for a better view put him against a nook where he hadn’t noticed an agent standing. Orel started as he met the eyes of a man staring at him, mouth in a fixed scowl.

“Oh! You scared me,” he blurted out. “Just getting dinner. Someone forgot, and… And…”

The agent kept glaring. So rude. He couldn’t even be bothered to talk.

Orel frowned. The sooner he was out, the better. Rule one, never let anyone see you.  _ How could you forget that? Stupid Yasha. Think, Yasha! Think! _

A tray ahead of him on the shelf beckoned, pink and glistening, with only a little muck. That could be wiped away easily. He pulled the sausages to him. His fingers juddered and the plate skewed at a drunken angle, sending two or three to land in the tacky puddle at his feet.

Orel sucked his breath in. He waited.

And waited.

_ They’ll never lift a finger against you if you get mad. _ Evgeniy talked real big. He hit too hard. The younger man never thought much of him before but it seemed he was right.

They didn’t raise a finger or shout.

The place was too still in the winter dark, even when everyone gathered for a meal. Even if ghosts didn’t  _ really _ exist, the bad stories robbed Orel of a smile after all. He looked at the assembled agents and nurses and orderlies, and some stared back for too long.

No one shouted for him to get back to his room, though he knew they would soon.

He might have enough time to get clear before someone pushed open the doors and shouted at him to do things, forgetting their words sounded like rocks rattling in a bowl.

The fridge door rattled shut after he elbowed it, and the man in the corner slid drunkenly to the floor. His coat hissed on the way down across a bumpy, dried smear. Something dully crunched when his face impacted tile.

Orel didn’t care so much about getting his feet dirty as he hugged the hot dogs and bun to his throbbing belly. Bandages tugged too tight. Something else to fix in his room. Back where it was safe. Where no one would come.

_ Back. The room was good. _

Hurrying back past the guard stations, he scattered casings in his wake. Tremulous melodies rang off cracked baseboards and walls. The music purred after him, and he  _ knew _ .

Dee-dee, dum, dum, dum. 

That was it. That was the slinky beat…

_ Eleven. Midnight. Safe. Good. _ He’d be waiting, a good boy, always a good boy.

In their trilling cadence, he remembered:  _ Let’s sway while colour lights up your face— _

And then he didn’t remember very much any more.

 


	10. Volya the Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky visits one of the supersoldiers held in a detention facility, hoping to build a rapport.

_ 2145 hours. Connecticut. _

Just over the state line, a forgettable stretch of office blocks in the back streets of a dusty urban conglomeration. They call that sprawl, in future days. Parking lots in concrete host forgettable two and three story blocks where fly by night companies roost as long as their profits run. The signs never stay in place for long. Security guards don't ask questions about odd hours. They don't question white vans or black sedans coming and going.

One of those facilities stands apart from the rest, ringed in a selection of spots never filled. Through a door is a foyer where magazines never read but always current litter a waiting room table. A receptionist, a heavy-set girl in a yellow polyester dress, mans a phone and a glacially slow computer, typing out letters that never go anywhere but a mailroom for shredding on a fancy electric typewriter. The place feels temporary because it is, the locked filing cabinets empty, the offices with their neat, cookie-cutter particle board furniture rarely if ever visited. The office staff check in, check out, and do things entirely unrelated to their bland, official titles.

Through a door, down past a warren of filing cabinets and identical pods attached to a mainframe, is a door sealed by considerably advanced technology. Through there, a pair of agents drink hot coffee and peer through a one-way mirror as a man does push-ups. They tallied them off. The tally covers a chalkboard. Somewhere past 4,478, and one of the agents uses a hand clicker to mark off the next set. It's a persistent rattle.

The dark-haired young man does not stop on this recent bout. His shirt is off, hurled away. Muscles gleam and sweat under the flushed hue of his skin. In every way, he is near physically perfect.

Another identical to the prisoner enters the observation room, accompanied by a stone-faced, high-level agent. He looks eerily similar, of course: longer hair, more wear, and that metal arm, though the latter's covered, as it always is. No attempt to sneak up on the agents watching, though he could; Bucky’s approach is quite the opposite. He wears a SHIELD-owned stun bracelet on his ankle, hidden under the leg of his jeans, which are loose enough to mostly conceal it. But being treated like a bomb waiting to go off is entirely reasonable. There are a lot of stars on the wall at SHIELD's academy because of him, even though he's one of the first ones, himself. He watches the man in the cell and the agents with equal patience.

Treated like a bomb going off would be appropriate in more ways than one, for the signals are mixed at best from the psychological profiles run again and again and again on this particular dark, dour Russian figure. Volya — the copy of Bucky — the embodiment of the long, harsh Siberian night in mid-December. The wet trails of his hair have not been pulled back from his shoulders or his face, left to cling wherever the sweat captures stray locks. His shoulders flex powerfully in a minimal amount of effort, hoisting him up to the apex of his rise and dropping down again. Another click on the hand-held counter, another. It's regular as clockwork and the two agents forced to witness this are probably bored out of their damned skulls. Hard to remain so terribly vigilant when it comes to someone who is clearly out to break a kind of record on how many pushups someone can do in a single hour. Or a day. A month.

"You're not the relief. Where's Decker?" says the second. He sighs. "Too much to ask?"

The first starts before the poker face slams into place. Stone, his name badge would read if he had name badges.

Buck's minder's of that same mind, about as expressive as a cinderblock. "Barnes gets to visit them. I stay out here, with this." A little remote brought to hand, he waggles it back and forth. They know what it is for, the bracelet that will drop Buck like a poleaxed steer if anything looks to go wrong. "If you object, state your objections." White, his ID says. "I don't know where Decker is. If you want to wait until full chance of shift, we will. No chances taken." Buck's schooled his expression to bored resignation, rather than tail-wagging eagerness.

The second sighs and keeps clicking off pushups. That's somewhere approaching 5,000, with no signs from Volya — their captive — that he intends to stop any time before the collapse of capitalism or the implosion of the red giant Sun. Down, hold, up. He breathes out sharply through his teeth and barely bothers to turn his attention away from the cracked line in the cement in front of him. Maybe this exercise will break the floor from under him. After all, one-way glass; he can't see who comes and who goes. His body is clearly unscarred and unmarked, no tattoos present like the other rescued kin.

"Decker's probably lost getting coffee and shift doesn't end for another two hours." Click. Click. Carolton — the second agent — is having the time of his life. Go into SHIELD, they said. Right, could've had a life in the Air Force.

Agent Stone grunts. "Fine."

Fight inhuman enemies. Get pulped by aliens. Air Force, indeed. "Let him in," says White. He's got the little clicker tucked away in his pocket, hand on it, as if Bucky might decide now is the time to be a Bad Dog, the other on his sidearm. Lest the clone come bursting out in a hurry.

The Winter Soldier stands square in the door, first target if Volya does object to visitors.

The door isn't easy to spot, flush into the wall. Stone disengages the electric lock with an ominous thump and it swings aside, freeing up another magnetic seal that buzzes out of being. Bucky can turn the handle himself, presumably. Doing so leaves a fairly narrow aperture for him to enter the chamber that smells rather heavily of clean sweat, disinfectant, and some kind of dustier background harder to identify. Volya is up the moment that door opens, recoiling.

He snaps back onto his heels in a crouch, rapidly withdrawing. Space opens up as he adopts that savagely defensive pose, his knuckles clearly battered from either punching the wall too much or spontaneously splitting. Muscles ripple as he scents the air and turns those pale, cold eyes on anyone who enters.

"He ain't friendly," sighs Number Two.

"Yeah, I see that," says Bucky, drily. He is only in t-shirt and jeans, hair tied behind him with a rubber band. No arms, no uniform or insignia. In Russian he says, gently, «You can stand down, I'm not here to hurt you.» Both hands are lifted in a gesture of placation.

«Huh.» Volya's tone is rather defiant and disbelieving, gone totally flat. He has all the expression of a stump and roughly the animation endowed upon a bag of Portland concrete. The watchfulness comes out of a bone-deep reflex somewhat sickening to perceive. The body isn't meant to remain at that high state of alertness all the time. He is a bit dirty given the floor is hardly pristine. Explosion promise in every movement follows as his wariness shoots up, edging sideways. «What do you want?»

With a telegraphed deliberation, Bucky folds himself down to sit cross-legged on the floor, hands on his knees. Now it is sharing time at kindergarten. «To talk to you,» he says, simply. «I'm James.» He skews the pronunciation Russian, slurring the J into the Dzh that's as close as it comes.

Kindergarten by Hydra: everyone hold your arms up and shout 'Heil!'

Volya simply stares without any animating expression worthy of description. His naturally deep-set eyes hold even harder edges than Bucky's own. He lacks the benefit of recent hope or reasonable treatment from SHIELD to erase those shadows, if they can ever be bleached out. «Talk about what?» Those clipped sentences raise the hackles, hostility a mantle around him. No, he's not one of the nice ones, last seen strapped sprawled unconscious on a floor in Québec, the progress there is telling. «Yasha.»

The diminutive catches Bucky flat-footed. That's something, right? «Yasha,» he agrees with a faint note of approval. «You. To see how you were. How you are now.» Keeping himself small, low-key, paints him as no threat, and not treating Volya like one. Wolfiekins there can take him, if he really tries.

It's the more common form of something. Volya twitches his shoulders, the effort of stopping in the thousands of push-ups causing a building up lactic acid. He has to roll them, clenching his hands into fists, something to alleviate the severe discomfort creeping up. His gaze is a hardened lance thrust into Bucky's gut, and not much higher. «Not dead. They're stupid.»

A jerk of his head indicates the observers beyond the mirrored glass. «Yeah?» he asks without an ounce of skepticism. Anything to keep him talking, and not fighting. The bump of the stunband is printed against the denim of his jeans.

Volya just glares, stooped on himself. He is slightly taller, slightly broader. His back against the wall comforts only because of the muscle tears making their protests known, acid in an open wound of a certain kind. The observers don't get a look from him. Possible he doesn't even realize the nature of the glass. «Wouldn't you be?»

He shrugs, the light in the cell rippling along the metal arm. «Sure. They're not us, after all. They get slack.» Buck looks him over thoughtfully. The variation on a theme, like a master carver's reiteration of a particular sculpture, rather than something stamped out by a press. How can he not be fascinated?

Volya goes back to flat silence, still working out the kinks in his shoulders, his arms. There's nothing quite like trying to figure out how to stay quiet and deal with the fact he's pushing himself to total muscle fatigue. This one might be younger, but the look in his eyes is the dead stare of a statue.

«You're what they wanted me to be,» he says, lightly. «It's kind of neat to see it, honestly.» No slack or excess is to be found in Bucky; he keeps in training. That body never gains any spare flesh, though he is a little more heavily muscled than he was when they unleashed him last. Blame sparring with Steve. «They didn't teach you English, though, did they?»

The statement goes in one ear. Rattles around in the tin can of the mind. Goes out the other. Difficult to say whether any of it strikes home since he comes from that school of facial expressions in negative. Volya keeps staring at his better original, the first photocopy, the one that happens to be absent elsewhere. «No.»

He knows better, and no doubt there is serious pucker factor in the Agents watching this, but none of them stop him as Bucky edges forward, a little, reaching a hand out with deliberate slowness. Reaching for Volya's hairline, to brush away some of that sweat-stringy hair. No doubt he'll be seized for the trying, but…

Oh yeah, they've got to love it. Stone, White, and Second — Carolton, as it happens — all watch from the other side of the glass. They take notes while things are recorded, words quietly jotted down by mechanical objects spinning film and tape on slow reels.

"Shit, shit,  _ abort _ !" snaps Stone, composure broken for a moment. He smacks his hand on the table. It won't be heard. Maybe Agent White has a better reaction.

Volya's training is what it is. That hand is fixed by pale eyes. The fingers slip closer, closer, and then he lashes out with explosive force. His palm cracks out while the other arm deflects up, meaning to jam fingers, strain the wrist, put immense pressure away from his face.

Agent White could stop Bucky's half of this in two heartbeats, drop him like a sack of sand on the floor, helpless in Volya's reach. But he doesn't. Is he one of the ones who lost a friend to the first Soldier, knew the terror of unseen crosshairs crawling up his spine? Or just willing to let it run for a little, to see how these things take each other on? Or is it mere shock. Not likely the latter, in someone who's reached the august heights of Level Seven clearance.

Bucky does not fight back. He yields with the joint lock; they both surge up from those low stances, and once he has room enough, he simply unwinds the torque by flipping around the wrist as an axis. There's Winter's grace.

Behold the sheen of violence in action. For Bucky, it must be immediately familiar and a fallback to dark, dungeon-like sepulchres where blood poured across the dirt floor and oil mingled with copper. Some of those men warped into creatures of war owed it to the concoctions pumped into their veins, hyperaggressive drives kindled out of chemical compounds. Hydra has enough talented chemists to make something. But this…

This killer instinct of Volya's shows all the signs of bred into the bone and practiced until perfect. Like his elder, he is heavier, ponderous, a bear next to the Wakandan panther or almost serpentine grace. Nonetheless, his weight is not cast askew off by a metal arm, and he compensates in other ways. Like that speed, throwing him isn't easy when he seems to hang in the air a split second shorter than he should. Already he wrenches his arm back and jabs three times in a flurry of successive movements to pressure points and nerves in Bucky's chest, smacking his head back if that should be necessary to open up space. Winter can be graceful, and also deadly in its onset, turning with an uncommon savagery devoid of rage. There is no anger in there, not the way most would see it. This is the finessed face of pitiless murder.

Behind the glass, Agents Stone and Carolton are on their feet, one of them running for the already lit-up phone. "Yes, I am getting this.  _ No _ . Do not authorize, do you hear me? Unless you get a Rank 8 overruling me, I do not permit it. He's  _ in _ there. What the hell do you think we're going to do, nuke them?"

The arm is the only advantage, because Bucky is determined to keep his word. Volya won't be hurt, not by him, anyhow. The arm takes punishment mere human flesh could never handle and he uses it accordingly, blocking the jabs, and trying to eel out of the way of that headshot. They are almost perfectly matched in those first few moments, like watching a man shadowbox in a flawed mirror. It looks choreographed.

«I'm not trying to hurt you,» he insists. «Volya, don't do this. I'm not your enemy.»

He says nothing. The way Volya turns has a quality of clockwork, rotating in precise forms that never really leaves his side or back open for long. He guards with his arms and attacks low, striking a series of plowing kicks meant to sweep Bucky's feet out from under him. Definitive taekwondo flavourings to the attacks, but then he adopts no particular style. No one left him a chair to deal with or much to kick with, only the towel and that should not be much of a weapon. Yet, anyways, until used for a garrotte conveniently. He spares nothing and he doesn't make a sound, not when struck, not when striking back. Rather like watching a film with no sound, except where Bucky's arm or hip collide with flesh, then the percussive beat rolls.

Stone stares through the glass and frowns that faraway sound. "You realize," he tells his counterpart who walked in with Bucky, "no one figured out how to turn that one  _ off _ ?"

White is no more expressive than either of them. Watching with the air of a scientist observing an experiment, he leans back a little. Finally, he says, laconic, "Yep."

Bucky's conserving his energy. Nor is he trying the codewords. No fear in him, not yet. He matches Volya as if he intends to let the newer soldier wear himself out. Which will, if it happens at all, no doubt be a while. His tone is still patient, unstrained, «Volya. Listen to me. I'm one of you. I'm not here to hurt you. You can stand down.»

There is, truth be told, a kind of bleak pleasure in White's face. Did he permit this out of some niggling curiosity to see the Winter Soldier himself in action against something that might give him an actual fight?

The conversation over the phone ends with an emphatic note: the handpiece returned to the cradle, cutting off an active stream of protest from some mandarin in the Triskelion a million miles away from Connecticut. The staff inside the building surely already activated on evacuation notice, running out the door with the secretary and their favourite sidearms. Being a wetworks squad has its privileges when called upon as such.

Volya has all the blanket quality of a sheet of ice, white bergs in a misty polar sea. He executes on principle, stepping back and swinging around in a circle, tracking an opening as surely it must manage. A snatch at the towel and ah, there it goes, wrapped around his hand as he lashes out with a singular punch right at the glass wall that seems solid enough. Until a crack forms, spiderwebbing up.

Another punishing strike rams right into the weak point unleashed by the first.

Okay. Playtime is over, the stakes are raised. He may be content to let himself be a punching bag all day long, but he is not letting Volya get out. "Fuck," Bucky says, under his breath. Volya turns his attention to the glass, and proved yet another SHIELD holding facility half-assedly inadequate to holding a super soldier. They're going to have to start keeping them in missile silos and sub pens. With the other's back to him, the brunet aims for a disabling strike right to the back of the neck. Not spine-breaking, but hopefully enough to put this one into reboot.

Playtime never was there. What the hell do the Russian super soldiers know of playtime? Playtime equals another round on an adrenaline surge, kicking over a hornet's nest. Rapid jabbing thrusts that make those five thousand pushups — seriously, so many — seem like a warm-up. Bits of broken glass start cracking out of true and the powdered dust running to the ground accompanies the spiderwebs forming there. Their only advantage, Volya isn't the most powerful of the lot in Bucky's camp.

Stone doesn't bother with a sidearm. What's the point? He steps back and looks to the door, then to Agent White. A silent recognition lies in place. This is why they wear the suit and swear the oaths. Also possibly why there are buttons to flood chambers with gas or lightning or whatever else the techs come up with. In their case, probably molasses and green flour slime.

That approach from behind is altogether too wrong. Bucky might remember the pale eyes frosty and so ephemeral in their cold. The sweat running down his face. Skin flushed, darker than his own complexion by a shade or two, only really visible when he's panting efficiently like a bellows. That snapping fist heads for the vertebrae, pain registers.

The sound of glass shattering might be like a bone breaking. A terrible mistake? He throws his arms up to deflect the shower from the exploded pane. The force punches Volya to his knees, thrown sideways. The stream of viscous memories comes in an assault as strong as the gut-punch: screams, darkness, oily battles dressed in fatigues as men with hoods on their heads and foreign attire are snapped like matchsticks in training. Begging. Russian, German, Polish.

Winter… The shade of the Winter Soldier — the first — rises at the psychic bars of his internal cage in an instant, roaring in fury, commiseration, a plea for succor. Like calls to like, and it leaves Bucky unbalanced, dizzy, for a moment. But that moment comes and goes, and he does his best to pounce on Volya and grapple him. "Get out and shut the room down," he yells at the agents. "Knock us out." He can stand a gassing, if that's what it takes. Those memories… are they his? Volya's? What kind of weird communion is this? Winter's still jumping at the cage bars, trying to reach down that link, if that's what it is.

The link goes much more one way in an assault with near tangible presence; the impact of emotion delivered in a distance strike. Nothing in that response remotely speaks to finesse. Brute force delivery pulses off Volya in waves. He sags forward, hands on his thighs, feeling for the pain and compensating through the numbing rush that runs up and down his neck. But not for long. Is Winter timing it from that cage, seeing the light? The same response times in the boy as the man, or vice versa, close enough to count. The gasp for breath is the only sound out of him as Bucky closes to grab him. They go in a tumble together, flung into a curbed roll, something to make snagging a limb or punching in a clinch that much harder. 

* * *

 

_ Cement and blood ripple through a stew, thick as borscht, nearly as reddened by flares of pain that electrocute the synapses at a faulty touch. _

_ A bloodied face looks up. Someone screams through the faded, hazy portrait of a bad memory. Who remembers? The Pole babbles. Not Belorussian, it sounds different. _ The lens of memory is a snag, and the rattling thoughts are around inside Winter's caged brain as the chant-down begins, blared over speakers.

_ «Good enough for you, father?» _

_ «Don't compare yourself to the virgin.» _

* * *

«Volya. Volya,» Bucky whispers the other soldier's name like a prayer. Twining himself around in a grapple that'll tighten to a pin, if need be. «It's Yasha. Hear me. Shut it down.» No questions for those odd phrases — they strike no chord in him, for now. But the pain makes him spasm, tightening his grip against the weakness it all wants to bring. «Listen to me.»

A string of words, one by one, echo across the loudspeaker. They prance and diverge away from the first incantations that rip apart Bucky's psyche. Volition bends and Volya shudders in silence, twisting and elbowing Bucky in the gut. Anything for free himself. Anything to get free. Put down an enemy that looks the same as him, he's apparently got no qualms about that.

«Fresco» rolls over the loudspeaker, at the end of a stream of words. He shakes furiously and snarls, wordless, in the elder soldier's face. Rictus grin, murder impassioned.

_ «No, Father.» _

On the other side of the broken window where the two agents wait, the horror is percolating through. 

Agent White snaps his head over at Carolton. “Where is that transmission coming from? We’re on evac, this wouldn’t be authorized from the Triskelion.” 

"No," mutters Agent Carolton. "That has to be it. That's the command phrase. Repeat it!"

Repeat it will. And Volya the Hunter does not fall.

Father. Wait, this one's calling him 'Father'?  _ Weird. _ This one he hasn't spoken to before. «I don't want to hurt you. Don't make me. Fight the words. You're your own man.» The blows hurt, of course they do. This soldier has mass on him, and the faint advantage of a whole body, all of it in working order, though the arm's better for some of it. Especially when Bucky tries to lever it around his "son's" throat, the better to send him off to dreamland.

SHIELD makes blunders. Every agency does. Size matters in ameliorating the worst effects when they arise. Bureaucratic size hardly gives any sort of warm, fuzzy feeling when it comes to the two men in suits staring at a room where the two soldiers tangle. Their third is already positioned by the door, as much to keep anyone waiting from getting in as the men from getting out.

Volya doesn't speak again. The only sound that might come from him are the impacts of his booted feet or fist against bone, flesh, cartilage. Even those that ought to betray him for being beaten to a pulp — and they're not unequally matched — come out as lesser wheezes. If he can fling Bucky off or reverse and slam him against one of the glass studded walls, he will. Though the threats that would put him down have that nasty, instinctive wave behind, the timebomb of psychokinetic force prepared to detonate again. If. If. If.

Buck might be able to get him down first. Or he's going to have a killer migraine.

Close work is his expertise, for all he's a fearsome sniper. Bucky's all over the younger Soldier like ants on a gummy bear, refusing to be dislodged or knocked out. The muscle-contoured plates rasp with pressure as he squeezes air out of Volya's lungs, his own vision going red with the effort. There is, deep within, a spark of pardonable pride that he can take down one of the newer models barehanded — and a fear that he'll misjudge the choke and kill him.

Death isn't likely the danger. The explosive pulse that blows them apart it is. It hurts as the red waves slamming a person into the rocks would normally be. No amount of conditioning can halt a mental sledgehammer from erupting through the skull. Blood runs out from one of Volya's nostrils, bright red and fresh copper. He goes through the stages of a ragdoll to wherever he lands, rolling aside or flung with bone-crunching force upon the cement walls. More of the pulverized rock trickles down after them. Akimbo limbs and ashen face make for a hardly dangerous approach.

Not that Stone buys it. He wheels on Agent White. "Extract, now. We've got next to no efficient data on his recovery rate."

Force explosions are enough to ring even Bucky's chimes. He all but leaves a full body imprint on the wall, like something out of the more violent sort of cartoon. He comes down off it in a slow roll, like something peeling off. Blood on his lips, from where he's bitten them, and blurred vision. "Jesus Fucking Christ, I can't do that," he says, as he pitches forward on to hands and knees.

Volya isn't getting up from that stupor immediately. He lies there in a fugue of bloodied unconsciousness, deprived of the animating force needed to consciously run out of the hole in the one-way glass he literally punched open. The fissure has two men in their suits staring down, waiting to see what happens. The incident proved a number of things disliked, not the least of which may be they have a short leash and reliance on another faulty asset to obtain control. Not a good sight.

Agent White may walk down there or stay put. The latter may have Agent Stone prepared to hurl him in. Carolton doesn't bother with the gun, or a first aid kit. He physically dials six numbers. Evacuations leave little option for him and their cellular phones and comms links cannot be trusted. Radio links are still up, spliced through the central office in Connecticut's SHIELD presence.

Soon enough a few employees in the parking lot come in, cuffs and all.

* * *

 

Bucky sees Volya bound and sedated before he yields to any of SHIELD's blandishments. He’s a stubborn bastard, and while he looks like twenty miles of bad road himself, he is conscious, able to talk and even to resist. Assuming White doesn't just hit the button on the stun bracelet and knock him right out. It could happen. Barring that, Bucky tends Volya as best he can through a sea of dust, shattered glass, and blood.

Agent White waits for Bucky to bother bringing the Soviet out into the observation room and there, desist. Volya the Hunter is a mess and no one is quick to dab those wounds up when they have their own work cut out for them. Volya remains under. The ascent from unconsciousness is bound to be particularly fast, though.

Bucky knows the drill: submit gracefully after doing what he can for Volya. There are enough grudge-holders in SHIELD, Peggy's influence aside, that someone's bound to take a potshot sooner or later, where he's concerned. 

White motions him out, peremptorily, gone from pale with fear to red with stifled fury, post-reaction. "Barnes," he says in a venomous hiss, "What did you do?"

Stone clamps his mouth shut. 

Volya gets bundled up, bound, carted out. Straitjackets are pointless when electrified cuffs are so much better. Carolton has his work cut out for him, already headachy at the thought of reports to be filed. Someone may take that shot but not while he has to clean up the mess. This is why none of the buildings in the periphery belt of New York have signs other than the cheap plastic kind or paper ones.

"Get me coffee," he tells one of the functionaries.

Now the consciousness of guilt roils over Agent Barnes, even as a few of the remaining medical folk come to examine his range of contusions and bruises. "I just touched him," he says, flatly, conscious of just how much like a grade-schooler he sounds. With adrenaline on the ebb. Now comes the consciousness of just how much he fucked up.

"Get him back to New York. Both of them," Carolton orders them. He gestures at Bucky and jerks one of the ugly folders free from a salvaged drawer. His expression is vaguely thunderous. "The facility is compromised. Full sweep removal. This is going to look positively great on my annual performance report."

One of them is even approaching tentatively with cuffs. Buck sighs and submits, without protest, hands behind him. No one darted him like an angry rhino, at least. That's something.

 


	11. Hunted by Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Transporting the Russian super-soldier goes terribly wrong. Bucky and Clint fight just to survive.

_0100 hours. US Highway 7. Connecticut. 41.7763° N, 73.4179° W_

* * *

Just over the New York state line, US 7 generally follows the Housatonic River. Like so much of Connecticut, the rolling dormant farmland and sprawl of gentle hills populated by the occasional farmhouse, metal trailer, or dim forest are utterly forgettable. Now and then signs appear in the headlights of a parade of vehicles to identify the next hole in the ground with a name. This far out, names don't even come accompanied by a population count. There is Kent, as there has been Kent announced for the past eight miles. Kent Falls State Park should not conjure the idea of thundering waterfalls and white water, so much as little red covered bridges. Pond Mountain Park has a hill covered in trees dying away from gold leaves.

None of the finer aspects reveal themselves in the dark. The near lack of traffic and bystanders are the only things worth noting about the two-lane road. Revolutionary ghosts might be prowling the countryside with Ichabod Crane. Whoever pulled this duty for a near two hour drive back to New York City is bound to regret it.

Three sedans move at fairly high speed, driven by tactical agents. Half of them came out of Danbury and linked up with the one brought out from the Big Apple containing a certain archer. Now that parade is headed for the rendezvous point: Pond Mountain Park. No one questions another vehicle or three on the road headed south, containing one of the most wanted men in America and another of the same person.

This has an unpleasant sense of deja vu. Bucky's clearly been in a fight; he wears bruises, a split lip, and a hell of a shiner on one eye. Cuffed bind his hands behind him, and a stun-bracelet graces his ankle: a little gadget with a fast-acting, high-dose sedative, the control remote held by another agent. He looks philosophical about it, though. Volya didn't get away. Bucky didn't kill him, or get killed himself. All the rest of it is paperwork and supremely disappointed looks from Peggy.

Volya the Hunter is currently shackled and guarded by two men in a Buick that needs a new life. The upholstery isn't comfortable. Neither are the seats. They sway together in the back seat, staring dead ahead into the dark. The one on the passenger's side has watch duty. The driver in the front keeps following the sinuous road at a speed no one likes. Their quarry sleeps in the trunk, because where else can they transport a troublesome killer? They listen to the radio, partly to make up for the dull crackle in another car. No one wants to know Bucky's discomfort.

The car ahead of them strobes another of those signs, highlighting the park's presence. Behind follows two drivers, including Agent Carolton who called this whole business in. Then Bucky's vehicle with angry Agent White. Taking up the rear is the wetworks squad on a hell of a budget, who more or less abandoned their forgettable office. Not far now, roughly a mile of swerving road as they close on the entrance. Possibly even less.

Another sign flashes on the side of the street and Clint groans and mocks it in a mundane tone, not unlike a train attendant, "Kent…" Stormy, but keen eyes flick over the darkness beyond the vehicle, lidded with either genuine or extremely well-feigned boredom. It's Clint, so it's hard to tell. The archer doesn't actually seem to be broken in any fashion today, having healed up from his last broken nose just fine, only a fading pink line on his jaw from the bar brawl, so in Clint World, that means he's in tip top shape. All for the best, really, considering.

He plays passenger gladly enough. Mostly because he threw paper and the other agent threw scissors, but also because the guy is, in Clint's opinion, useless except as a driver. But he got shotgun. Better to keep an eye out for trouble, really. Even in the dark and utterly mind-numbing road trips with cardboard people. He stays alert, if bored, and trying not to shoot off a million annoying comments since the last question of 'Have you ever had to pay for sex?' in regards to the guy's unfortunate appearance earned him a _look_.

Hard not to doze off with a lack of stimulus. At least Bucky’s not in the trunk. Threats were made. Right now Agent White is very definitely not the president of the Bucky Barnes Fan Club, and a long angry queue behind him of club members wish to turn in their badges, metaphorically speaking.

Buck presses his cheek to the chill of the window, presumably to soothe the bruises there, his eyes closed.

The driver for their car, since White also has 'shoot the Russian bastard before he gets away' duty, gives his senior agent a look. "So, that's really the guy that was in the war with Cap?"

Bucky takes it upon himself to answer, with a slurred, "Uh huh."

Even when there isn't some stupid counter-intelligence program trying to fuck with Clint's day, the very wildlife in the podunk middle of nowhere has to make things difficult. The archer perks up while he notices a train of headlights down the way, taking his elbow off of the window ledge and sitting up in his seat. "Thank fucking God. I was just about to start playing I-spy. And it's dark out. I spy with my little eye something bllllack." He turns his head to obnoxiously pull that word between his teeth directly at the driver. "Gee. I wonder."

Absolutely no effort whatsoever is necessary for someone to notice something going awry. It all happens at once.

A deer springs across the road in a frantic dash. Those bounding movements draw to a halt. Headlights illuminate the fixed, dark eyes of liquid ink. The first of the southbound sedans veers around into the oncoming lane, proof _someone_ failed their defensive driving class. Wild flashes might suggest overtaking if not for the drunken swerve. The driver swears. The music cuts out to the string of colourful language that would upset someone's Yiddish grandma.

The tail lights blast in a string of cherry red Christmas lights for cars two, three, and four. Carlton cranes his head to see what the hell caused the commotion and the other driver literally shouts, "Oh, deer!"

The world explodes seconds later. A fireball erupts out of the second with such force the shockwave travels down the road in both directions. Bushes on the soft shoulders rattle madly. Anyone asleep isn't going to be now. Glass rains down as the carapace of the burning vehicle heaves up into the air and smashes down in a marigold orange halo.

Clint has the pleasure of witnessing this at less than one mile away, and that it's perfectly dark makes the fireball even more impressive.

And of course that's when everything just goes fantastically wrong. One of the pairs of headlights veers out wildly, drawing Clint's attention out of the corner of his eye. Squinting, the agent leans forward and frowns. "What the-- Who stopped for Margarita Wednesday in Kent? Speed it up. C'mon, man." Impatiently twirling his finger in a circular motion at his companion, who gives him an annoyed look and snorts in response, barely increasing pressure on the gas pedal.

BOOM!

Clint's eyes go wide and he sits back in his seat. "Aw, fireball. No." The blond shoots another look at the man next to him. "You believe me now? Hit it!"

The sour agent beside him is only a little pissed off to actually do what Clint says, speeding down the road toward the explosion. Clint smiles dryly and rolls his shoulders back, loosening up. "Thank god. I was just about to fall asleep. Going to have to send someone a Christmas card."

The explosion doesn’t quite panic Bucky completely. But he goes from weary, battered, and bruised to riding on an adrenaline high that would give cocaine a serious run for its money, all in about three heartbeats. He shakes around like a die in a cup. Before the driver can even bring the car he's in to a halt, he pops his restraints like they're woven out of daisy stems, hurled himself out the door, and is on his way to the heap of burning wreckage - presumably to see if anyone survived.

Bucky's night sinks even lower when his car is summarily smashed into by the startled drivers behind him. That sends the vehicle careening out of the way and Agent White slammed forward into the driver's side bench seat. The driver has a worse time of it. The steering column takes him straight through the chest.

Clint's driver nails the brakes less than a quarter mile off the twisting road, in part because of… something. Something that tears through tyres and slices the bumper apart, snapping and singing with an oddly metallic note. Their sedan hasn't got a hope as they go whipping across the road on a stench of hot rubber, and right for trees and wire-netted fence. His next stop is being flung through the passenger side door, but thanks to fast reflexes, the archer avoids a sudden stop at a tree trunk.

Clint's attention is fixed more on the area of the explosion rather than what's happening around his own vehicle, so the sudden conflict happening with his car is entirely unexpected. Grabbing the arm rest with one white-knuckled hand and the dash with the other while the tires are shredded and they go entirely askew, whipping them back and forth like ragdolls, waiting for the ride to stop. The stop doesn't look the least bit friendly though, as in a flash of erratic headlights, that treeline looks pretty unforgiving.

Gritting his teeth, Clint has got a sidearm, sure, but what good is an archer without his weapon of choice? An agile twist around, he snags the strap of his quiver tucked behind the driver's seat and bails. Peace! The asphalt isn't much more forgiving than those trees, and dear god, Clint hopes there aren't any caltrops on the road as he schools his natural animal reaction to tense up and goes mostly limp and rolls across the ground.

Bucky too is overwrought by explosive tintinnabulation resounding through the primeval cup of his brain. Little bones rattle in wild oscillations. His mad run makes for a hell of a sight as he already sprints. A double take reveals that to be Volya. Two burning figures lie prostrate, and the passenger coming out from the first car hasn't got a chance. The Winter Soldier watches his twin dance through the infernal holocaust, revolving around with cracked door to slam into the staggered SHIELD agent.

In the mad chaos revolving around them, a shot explodes through Agent Carolton's eye and nails Agent White square in the chest. No one will ever pressing the ankle-bracelet stun device. The scent of petrol rises on the air.

"Ow-ow-ow-ow! Hot!" Clint hisses between his teeth as he tumbles, slowing enough to try to get his feet under him during one of the rotations, skidding and running a little haphazardly. Brand new roadrash in token spots. "Hot-hot-hot…" Keen eyes searching in the darkness for what the hell just attacked his vehicle when shots call out. Cover. Clint gets out of the pools of streaming headlights first and foremost.

On the perhaps foolish assumption that there's anyone alive to hear him, Bucky bellows, "Sniper!" at the top of his lungs. This day has gone from merely bad to 'radioactive dumpster fire' so quickly.

Which means that he's in no shape at all to sneak up on Volya. No sneaking, then. He tries for a tackle, all the better to try and punch the other soldier right out of a fire.

The car at least gives Clint cover, important all things considered. Whoever is shooting is _very_ accurate about their shots.

The third vehicle where a thoroughly dead Carolton slumps against shivers with flame, the gasoline in the tank clearly affected. A leak on the ground dumps more, and the flaming debris still floating down — leaves, bark, you name it — sure to ignite sooner than later. Three agents in the last car take aim from behind the ajar door where they can, but the blast has a terrible effect on their aim. So terrible, in fact, two of them shoot the wrong person. One wings Clint. The other nails the last surviving driver rather than Volya. The shrapnel from a broken window hits Bucky, insult to fucking injury.

Volya is beautiful in action. Terrible, but beautiful. When the soldier collides with him, he spins and rolls, pulling them across the distance to the shadows. Maybe there's a punch to the face in there. Their path suits.

Right into the unblinking eye on high, the cruel, stubborn muzzle of a gun. Perfect shot. Remorse is a fleeting thing.

Clint runs for cover, his path veering slightly as that bit of friendly fire wings him; grunting and careening into the metal beast of a car he was previously in, he goes down to one knee. He shakes off the stunned wonder with a shake of his head, checking momentarily on the agent who drove him. A yanks his bow out of the second compartment in his quiver, flinging the latter efficiently over his shoulder and loosely knocking an arrow in his ever so charming, laughably antiquated way. Seconds spent in cover are at least profitable for gaining his bearings as to the identifiable threats in the area, including the terrifying soldier-assassin ballet happening in front of him. They go careening into darkness and for an instant he rises, giving a tug to assist -- but there's a sniper on site.

He watches for the muzzle flash of a sniper in the darkness or an accidental reflection of fiery light on a scope lens. "Barnes! I'm going to be pissed if you die!" Clint huffs.

Bucky knows a shooter is out there. The fact brands the back of his mind. But he can't let Volya kill anyone who’s left (assuming anyone is) and then go haring off into the dark. He did his level best to warn whichever remaining SHIELD agents of the threat they face. He is long past the time when he might think of looking for a radio link, fallen into the beguiling horror of his own likeness fighting in front of him.

Is there a weird, distant echo of pride in the dark little corner that Winter still holds in Bucky’s mind? To see what he might've been, without those patched-together weaknesses, without those fissures in that perfect loyalty. "Barton," he yells from whatever shadowy pile he ended up in. "Call it in! Call us backup!" Because that worked so well this time. Then he surrenders cover, waiting for an opening, the explosion of movement to pin Volya, or knock him out. Position focuses as much of the incoming damage as he can on the metal arm.

Nothing to see in the shadowy darkness, the foliage overtaking the flanks of the road. The ignited gasoline spreads to the second vehicle. Its liquid coils run serpentine, coming alive, spitting and hissing as the crawling flames seeking the source.

Clint has a fair bit of looking around to do before he spots anything: the sheen of light off Bucky's arm in metal cladding rather than silhouettes divorced from the gloom. Barton does not immediately call it in for whatever reason. At the moment his priority isn't calling for assist. Unfortunately for them. Communication has never been his strong suit—ask his wife.

Burning gasoline on the road is dangerous, but it adds light to an increasingly dangerous situation.  

The impacts of fists and feet hurt, a one-sided affair on Bucky’s part. Volya moves in soundless harmony, and he sure as hell doesn't say anything back.

All seems balanced. well. Bucky goes and gets kicked in the ankle. And _shot_ in the ankle, as it happens, in the blur of motion. Good thing he had a bracelet.

Whatever and whoever is running, Clint decides to be a bad thing. Hestraightens himself, pulling taut in spite of the scream of protest in his new bullet-aerated skin, he lets fly an arrow fixed with a very peculiar, rather large payload on it rather than an arrowhead. A lightning bolt in a bottle, the heavy payload sends a stun-gun's worth of electricity surging through, well, whatever it hits. So they best not hope it's Barnes fleeing.

Bucky blames this turn of events on being the rough draft, and also the secondary damage. Because Volya has found his feet, so to speak, and the SHIELD operative is completely off balance. The sniper may not have aimed to break his leg, but a moment of terror when the bracelet is shot off his ankle freezes him solid in mid-stride. He more or less faceplants, knowing these are likely his last moments on Earth. Maybe this death will stick.

Dangers abound. The world stutter-stops into frozen frames for one of the men, possibly two. An arrow bisects leaping flame, its tip twinkling in fell purpose. Fletching divides the crackle and weak echo with an odd keening.

Volya snaps his head back to the trees, teeth bared in a rictus snarl. Whatever he strives to see in the stygian, smoke-quenched dark, the crack of a bullet and the fire-flash don't give him much pause. Old habits die hard. Especially instincts. He drops, yanking the man with the metal arm into the grass.

Branches shudder. Easy to overlook as the lightning surge bursts out in a stunning halo. Surely the rapid shot arrow hits _something_ in a satisfying crackle. But who, what?

The weight balanced in Clint’s quiver shifts, and one of the more supple arrows in his collection swipes him flat across the flank and backside hard enough to shatter into pieces. That leaves a mark. Turn and he sees only the hints of a man's face, smeared in soot-black shadows and a black mask. Only his brow is visible, pale as a Siberian snowfall. Those eyes, if they're human at all, coalesce into black nothingness. Russian lashes after him.

«Run, boy.»

There are subtle signs any hyper-attentive trained soul learns to read when they engage in dangerous matters. Nuances of the earthly plane that alert any of the five senses, which one can train their brain to recognize, even without mystical or superhuman prowess. The human brain can be so underestimated simply because most folks aren't obsessive enough to take advantage of it. The shift of the breeze or resonant sounds as they are obstructed by a creeping figure or object; the churning of light in a flicker on the periphery of vision; the subtle tug of gravity existing between a body containing mass, only identifiable by a well-tuned body adapted to find that magnetic pull.

Clint knows these things. Not a single one of these traps set in his paranoid little mind are tripped before he feels that shift of weight in his quiver. Alarms scream in his head a second too late. Clint turns with a defensive brace of his bow, too late; his leg buckles, hip giving out for a moment and forcing the archer to one knee as he swipes at _whatever the fuck_ just snuck up on him with his reinforced bow. He aimed about knee height. His heart rate jumps.

Buck still struggles against Volya, trying to kick the other soldier's feet out from under him, dragging him down and acting like deadweight.

«The fuck do you think you're doing, boy?» he demands, and there's a hint of the old sergeant's growl in his voice. «You're not getting away.» He speaks with a firmness he doesn't feel. The shattered bracelet chills him in earnest because he knows the difference between a damn near impossible shot made deliberately and the wild carom of something deflected by accident. _There's a sharper, more skilled little monster out there._

Volya fights back hard, delivering a brutal kick to the same wounded ankle with all the strength he can possibly muster. That weak joint explodes in pain. Will it even support Bucky's weight? Thank Agent White, requiescat in pace, for slapping that on at the Director's request. The remnants of the shattered device take the direct blow. The Russian operative’s eyes are far from wild, narrowed to frost-shrouded scrutiny. The broken cuffs used to restrain him glisten at his wrists.

The archer, some yards off, is caught in the ghoulish sweep of burning motor oil and gasoline. The other car succumbs to the flame, orange ghosts permeating the stygian black of a landscape tamed but not well-lit. No one groans; no one whispers frantic warnings over the radio to SHIELD. Only the deer survives, dashing off to tell its ungulate cousins about a bad encounter with two leggers.

 _Aw, fire. No._ Fire is a particularly cumbersome foe in Clint's opinion. It does a hell of a job obscuring the senses with smoke and optical illusions from heat and light, especially in the deep dark of BFE. You know, aside from being real burny.

More concerning, still, is the _thing_ with the sniper rifle pointed at him and the cold, calculating stare no _human_ should have. All his smart-assed remarks dissipate like water droplets on a skillet, turning the cheater's coin to the blank side, expressionless while the animal portion of his brain takes over, stuffing down the initial spark of fear that tastes metallic in the back of his throat. Survival was the goal.

Every method to bring Bucky down in that field Volya employs without prejudice. Dirt kicked at the eyes, leaves and twigs flung into his face, objects are a matter of convenience. Whatever gives a split-second flinch to slow Bucky down.

Not one to give the least quarter, Barnes lashes out with non-lethal force or the closest thing he has. The metal arm blocks the blows raining down onto his head and torso. He gives as good as he gets at times, ramming his knee up to try and throw Volga off.

Between punches aimed for his chest, the Russian rises, running, dashing, stumbling into the fields and gentle woods not nearly so harsh as Siberia. Or wherever they buried them.

When Clint swipes something, his bow _should_ connect with a physical presence. The humming twang vibrating up his arm marks a momentary collision: the metallic barrel of a sniper rifle pointed at his back. Pitch dark, the unblinking eye traces its lethal trajectory to his blond head. The one holding it clearly has no issue with depressing the trigger and ending things. The slightest adjustment takes barely a moment, only that, and the black-masked Soviet operative waits for an error on Clint’s part. He will be more than happy to ventilate the American archer.

Down on one knee and pivoted toward his attacker, Clint's planted foot shoves off the asphalt and sends him in an agile spin away from the barrel pointed at his spine. Smoke and flames distort his silhouette as he reaches over a shoulder to pull an arrow from his quiver as he spins hard to the right, dual-wielding at the black-eyed motherfucker with the rifle; his bow attempts to continue to block the deadly cylinder backing hot lead, parrying swords of a kind while he thrusts the arrow toward the spectre. He needs enough time or distance to run. The air is getting too acrid even for his blackened lungs.

It's all greyhound instinct now, though Volya is far more deadly than any plastic rabbit in the wide white world. If the shooter wants Bucky, he'll have him. No chance in veering off from his pursuit of that particular wolfling to try and flank the sniper. That red-starred arm might as well be a neon sign over his head. Volya is the target, and Bucky's after him hell bent for leather. No attempt at stealth or trickery -- he apparently intends on running the bastard down, despite his wounds and bruises.

Dark arrows cut through empty space. Acrid smoke blazes into the air, and the more fuel given the fire, the hotter it burns. Another crackle becomes the choking throat-clearing of an infernal being, as the second sedan aflame really catches. Burping metal and consumed inner upholstery deserve to be run from. Instinct even in the greenest recruit screams to _run_.

Supposing the dark effigy of the Winter Soldier independent from Agent Barnes’ target doesn’t inspire gut-curdling terror on his own, Clint has reason to flinch. A bullet whizzing through space is just the thing to turn the man's bowels run to water.

Run is absolutely on the forefront of Clint's mind as he can almost count down the half-seconds of consciousness he has left while he forces himself to not cough and expedite the smoke gathering in his lungs. Blue eyes akin to the sky over the sea before a storm red and damp, the storm more vivid from the smoke, but even blurred, he should have hit _something_. Some fuckery was going on here. And when Clint encounters fuckery, the difference between him and the usual red-shirt is that he escapes. With much ego-licking afterward, but nonetheless. He rabbits for escape.

Volya makes for a hell of a sprinter, but distance could be harder to gauge. Doubly so when he never grunts or hisses, and keeps those tertiary sounds to outright silence.

Bucky has nothing to throw at Volya to try and bring him down. Shouting won't help, either, that's finally sunk in for now. Trying for quiet to match that of his prey, the sergeant goes into that ground-covering stride -- not as big as Steve, but faster. And maybe, hopefully, a little more so than his kid.

Spanked (literally), Clint shucks the arrow back in his quiver as he turns away and dashes toward the shell of the least ablaze vehicle at what he can only assume is the thinnest point of the threatening flames. Pulling the flap of his jacket over his head and across his mouth covers his most flammable and sensitive parts. Head down, the spry little bastard runs up onto the hood, over the roof with as much height as he can when he jumps through the fire. Which, okay, looks cool, but is _stupid_ . at least he didn't run through burning oil and gas, though. He lands hard in a roll on the other side, hoping not to smother himself in flames like a chicken cutlet. Clint mentally repeats to himself mentally, _Don't burn, don't burn, don't burn, OhJesusMyBallsThat'sHot!_

The sedan ignites such that the gas tank explodes about forty-two seconds after Clint goes hell for leather away. The road happens to be safe. Dead agents litter the pavement. No one survives this night without scars, whether a scraped, aching ankle; a swatted derriere; a really big dent in the budget.

Bucky charges after Volya, Volya runs for the taste of freedom. Not far from the road is the twisting Housatonic River, hardly too deep but wide enough as it comes out of the Massachusetts hills to be a nuisance.

Clint comes out into the fresher air with a grunt and sputter, eyes red and the world blurry. He rolls for several feet and pops up with a fluid draw of and arrow and taut square of his objecting shoulders, paranoid for all the right reasons while he blinks the world into focus. "…Fuck my parade!" Some just wanna see the world burn, but it's not high on Clint's list tonight. His body protests, but the archer switches out his arrow in a fluid motion, swipes the new bit of ammo over the nearest flame, the head sparks and sizzles to life with a sharp hiss.

A fuse. Clint gets to his feet and starts to run in the direction he last saw Barnes and Volya, firing the sputtering arrow high into the air over his best estimate where one may run. The arrow vanishes into the dark, then explodes in the air, hanging in the sky, illuminating it with a slow-burning, bright, amber light. Flare arrow, bro. Shed some light as to Volya and Bucky's location and maybe signal an emergency to some onlooker who didn’t notice two damn carfires.

Oh, this is really great. Because Buck, it turns out, is an excellent swimmer. And when they hit the water, he closes the distance. Nevermind that a fight in the middle of a river in autumn would usually be a hugely bad idea. Hypothermia, indeed. Though these two are super-soldiers.

Never mind that Volya was raised in Siberia or some hellhole adjacent that makes winter hardly an issue. He hits the Housatonic River under the burning light and wades across -- the lazy current dammed in too many places wouldn't be a challenge at the best of times to hold off Clint or Bucky. Never mind the high water is nothing next to the Lena or the Ob or half a dozen other miserable places no one likes to swim.

All that matters when Bucky closes the difference, his sopping, silent counterpart already turning with a fatalistic glare in his eyes and a cold, expressionless reaction. _So be it._ He opens and closes his hands into fists. Perhaps that's the danger of it all. Nothing lights the man's face. Nothing would imply he cares.

But Bucky does. A scalding bolt of guilt explodes through him as he swings his metal fist into Volya's stomach -- into his own, as it would look to anyone else -- and delivers a backhanded blow with his palm to knock the man down into the water.

Struggles churn up the river into foam, his blood running hot and his skin so cold, until repeated strikes finally lay out the Hunter.

He breathes still, limp in the water, hauled up by the bloody faced agent. Clint strobes a flashlight on the cold river bank to signal them back, and all Bucky can do is shake in horror.


	12. Operation Leo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD receives an extraction request from a KGB defector. In return for intelligence on a secret program that may explain the Winter Soldier twins.

**Operations Report: Berlin Main**

AGENT: SMYTHE, Gilda DOB: 07/11/1925

STATUS: ACTIVE - Agent LOCATION: West Berlin

HANDLER: Arnalds STATUS: Active

CLASS: Top Secret ACCESS: Level 7

\-- DO NOT DUPLICATE --— OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR -—-

**OPERATIONS REPORT**

**BERLIN II: OPID 11.84.269-33ORFG00**

Agent Smythe confirmed LEO made official request for extradition from GDR via dead drop C01 on Leninplatz. Agent Mercer authorized Smythe to approach and make verbal contact on 11.19.1983.

LEO has requested secure transfer for himself and two civilians (ZOSMA and DENEBOLA). LEO's credentials are impeccable as a veteran member of the Committee for State Security (KGB). Veteran of SMERSH. Long tenure (1966-1977) in Vienna established no traceable activities. CIA cross-reference produced no records. Handler is believed to be GOLEN.

GOLEN known to be in favour with Marshal Sergey SOLOKOV. [—Arnalds]

Established in East Berlin (1978-1983) as senior operative. Asset has ties to political establishment and current army high establishment. Assumed he has significant inroads.

LEO promises a full accounting of active personnel and secure programs under Chairman of Committee for State Security.

To date no stable resource has extracted information about BLACK OPS from Sovet Ministrov CCCP (Council of Ministers). [—Arnalds]

Over October, LEO transferred request documents via courier to the Deutsche Bundesbank. Technicians confirmed the supplied records for movements and transfer of materiel through Istanbul in September 1983 are accurate. Personnel notes correspond to known Soviet assets operating in Turkey and Greece.

**XREF report OPID 11.03.582-14GRDL51** \- risk assessment amassed by C Division, enclosed

* * *

 

Peggy doesn't leave the continental U.S. much these days. She is busy. But the last few days have her a little testy. And so she's done what she doesn't anymore: caught a classified flight to Europe, and is now boots (or rather, heels) down on the ground in Germany.

It's been a while.

She speaks German like a native, of course, and this is bringing back memories to her. She's arranged a meeting with Smythe; always best to touch in before you start an op.

Welcome to West Berlin. SHIELD's headquarters at Berlin II sit right in the middle of tony Charlottenburg, home to affluent manors and the largest royal palace remaining in Berlin. Green spaces abound, which makes the elegant four-storey building immediately adjacent the famous Schwarzes Cafe and famous rebuilt Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church positively  _ hideous. _ No one in West Berlin wants to live right on the U-Bahn line and within spitting distance of the Berlin Zoo.

Everything is German punctuality here, right down to the American agents invested right behind Vienna Bar, and above a row of perfectly productive businesses that give SHIELD agents the most plausible cover. Besides, when you need to send flowers for your enemy's memorial, Kant Florist is ready to provide. The scent of those lilies floats on the air in an office where Director Carter and Agent Coulson are directed to.

It's a fair sight prettier than anything in New York digs, thanks to a number of elegant maps put up on the wall. 

* * *

 

_ Fourteen Hours Ago: _

"A trap? Come on, Peg. Of course I've considered that." Coulson peered over his mug of coffee, fixing Peggy Carter with a rueful grin. "Don't tell me. Got your curls singed by Howard again?" He took another sip before lowering the mug. "Hopefully it isn't that, but, don't worry. I'll have eyes on you the entire time; you won't know I'm there unless I need to be there."

Peggy tightened her fingers around her teacup. The Earl Grey blend perfumed the air with the redolent orange scent. “What would this organization do without your charm?”    


_ “ _ You’re itching to get out. I can’t blame you. It's the best part about deep cover ops,” he told Peggy while they were still stateside. “Sometimes, I get to have a full head of hair.”   
  


* * *

 

Coulson blends in particularly well here. Granted, during the War he was posted in Vietnam, but it didn't take him long to take up German, considering how many long-term operations he conducted in the European theatre for SHIELD. He dons a wig for this particular occasion, and went so far as to dye his eyebrows a lighter shade so that they more properly match the slicked back, blond hair. 

He walks down a busy avenue close to where the meeting is supposed to take place,  deep in conversation with a German businessman who happens to be in the film industry. The two are discussing the merits and detriments of a certain German star’s career under a string of terrible releases; the latter smokes a hand-rolled cigarette while Coulson carries a cup of coffee in his left hand.

Agent Smythe is looking not the least put out. She resembles a German in every sense of the word, put together, about forty, with unmemorable blonde features that attest to why she blends so well into a city full of blondes. Her grey suit is impeccable. Coffee she has someone else deliver is equally outstanding, if lacking a bit in personality. "Director." She gestures to a large oval table. There are few filing cabinets here, no windows, two guards in neat grey and black suits. "Thank you for coming on such notice and in person." She sounds like a Berliner. "Given this operations report, we felt senior staff needed to be notified. Our agents in Kaliningrad are working double time with the CIA to obtain any extra material. He's legit. Not so senior as to warrant parking a sub off Norway, but getting there."

"Quite all right." Peggy says in answer to Smythe. "This seems important enough to warrant some personal attention." Despite the fact that she would never admit it, she needs the time away from New York, and away from the multitude of problems she deals with. "Have you been able to explore options for insertion to East Berlin for us?" She looks over to Coulson, and his wig. "After all, I'd hate to miss the opportunity."

* * *

 

"A beer?" the filmmaker asks.

Coulson comes up short momentarily, studying his partner with a dubious expression. Then, with a sigh, he gestures in a dismissive manner. "No, no, I'm afraid I cannot. There's a pernicious young lady I pissed off, and I have to do everything right." He nods his head toward Kant Florist, smirking. "Yes?"

"Yes," answers the man, nodding his head toward Coulson. “Another time, friend?"

Coulson nods vigorously. "Another time, yeah."

"Tschuss!"

"Tschuss."

* * *

 

Not much later, Coulson is entering the office building with a bundle of flowers in hand. He looks toward those gathered with a disarming smile, and reaches forward to settle the flowers down before Smythe. "I'm afraid there's a young German filmmaker to whom I referred to you as 'pernicious'. Trust me; I didn't mean a word of it." He then settles down into an empty seat, sharing a look with Peggy before adopting the role of casual observer, should anyone be fooled by  _ that _ play.

Agent Smythe does not sit until her superiors are in their chairs. Not the operations lead here, she holds herself upright at near parade rest. The projector waits for her to start feeding it transparencies to shoot from the overhead, and a projector reel waits dutifully beside the table. The beam trains on a pulled down projector sheet, glowing a dull white. Arnalds is somewhere stalking through the building, tying his tie into a respectable knot, while his secretary makes panicked sounds about jam donuts. The restaurant on the corner, perhaps.

"The checkpoints are out," says the woman. "Too heavily manned nowadays. For officially legging it over the border, legal advisors or humanitarian mission visas remain an option. They operate on day passes." She takes a transparency from her folio and lays it down, revealing a table. "Advisors give assistance in West German law for companies and individuals, prisoners, and immigration. Humanitarian missions provide social assistance. We've monitored a number of them, including those delivering medicines and goodwill visits. They include artists. Journalists are subject to heavy scrutiny. Delivery drivers are too likely to snarl you up. Academics might be possible, but with all respect, Herr Fury and you, Director, are likely to attract attention that way. Leo is flexible to us, with the advantage of having his papers intact."

"I 'am' practiced in disguise and undercover operations, Agent Smythe." Peggy notes, almost sounding offended that she has to bring it up. She was doing spy work when most of these agents were still in primary school. "I don't think any official means would be wise. However, if there aren't several unofficial channels, then someone here is overdue for some reprimands." She'll look over to Coulson and Fury. "Opinions, gentlemen?"

Fury slouches into the office, like the best of Berliners, dressed rather casually but in all black. He picks at his sweaters, with sunglasses to finish the costume. The only thing besides the the silver streaks to give him away would be the obnoxious smoke pouring from his cigar. He grunts at the sound of hearing the borders are out and turns to Peggy and Coulson. Nothing said just a scowl. He only snarls his agreement at the Director’s prompting. “None of it sounds great. But I'd suggest some interference. Say, some unfortunate incident nearby. They love rushin' folks threw gates when shit is burnin'.” Whether he is grinning or chomping on that smoke is hard to tell but he does spill ash on the carpet.

Coulson remains quiet, apparently taking no offense to his offering of flowers being blatantly ignored. Most of those in SHIELD know of his penchant for props and lightly colored characters, but they also know the reason to which he goes to such depths. It tends to pay off in a pinch. It's all a charade, one he hopes not to fuel reliance upon.

He waits for Fury to make that suggestion, before grimacing a bit. Not about to count that idea out just yet, but before commenting on it, he turns his attention back to Smythe. "What do the Germans in the East know about our wayward Leo?" he asks. "It would be pretty stupid of us to make a decision without understanding what kind of interference East German authorities might be willing to make."

Smythe gives a pained look at the door. Any time her handler wants to show up… Arnalds takes the stairs two at a time and halts long enough on the landing to allow himself to lose the flush to his cheeks. "Understood, ma'am, but their detection rates shot up in the last six months and we are still trying to understand how. Isolating the possibilities, our working guess is someone with mental abilities." The very idea is distasteful. A psychic East German? Her expression hardens down to a mask.

Arnalds lets himself in right about that moment, nodding to the guards. "Good day, madame. Sirs." He rather defers to the woman already speaking. He pushes aside the flowers and looks at them, then Smythe. 

"They have not determined Leo's intention to defect," says Smythe. "His reports and activities continue without no anomalies. With his rank, he answers directly to someone in East Berlin through normal KGB channels. We haven't heard any chatter surrounding him. Man's a professional. His wife is ignorant. She thinks he is a pharmaceutical developer."

"Lovely." Peggy's tone is dry enough it should be found in a desert. "Lacking superior options, the Friedrichstrasse rail station should suffice. Forged paperwork, a distraction, and we should be able to slip across." She says, looking at the others. "Again, unless there is a better idea?"

Fury grumbles and sinks into a chair. “Wait a minute. Wife?" Shaking his head, he says, "We gotta get his ole' lady out too?" The cigar he taps out into a dish. "Either way, I think it's all we got to go on right now.” Enthusiasm is distinctly absent.

Coulson diverts his attention momentarily toward Fury. "Don't assume it isn't part of some ruse. He's high ranking KGB. Might be a play to try and get us snagged." He draws a deep breath, then settles back into his seat and firmly into a comfortable, unnerving silence. "I'd be more comfortable having Hankers and Dansen do the paperwork, but we probably don't have the time to fly them over." He taps his chin for a moment, mentally going over the list of operatives they have in the West. "Stiglitz and Hoffner ought to be able to rustle up papers that'll pass unless we get some Norman the Nose sniffing around." He finally leans forward, gesturing his concession. "Sounds like a plan."

Then he glances between Fury and Carter. "Extraction option? Been a long time since I've sucked on a cyanide pill."

Smythe nods. "Leo requested the extraction of his wife, asset Zosma, and his eleven-year-old daughter, asset Denebola. Attempting to pull him without those two invariably will not earn his cooperation." She leaves the alternate on the table without saying it. Arnalds gives her a nod. "The intelligence he brings is worth the risk, as far as the office is concern. The numbers and count verified in Turkey establishes that. Yes, it may be a ruse. And we'll have his only child in our sights. The man dodged around purges and the fall of his predecessor's party that wiped out half his office."

Her breath is hitched. "Stiglitz can make the papers, I'm sure. Getting everything together should only take half an hour at most once we get the photographs. What sort of distraction are you aiming for?"

Fury nods to Phil. "Always a possibility. Damn near a likelihood." He stands. His posture firm and upright as he crosses the room to look out a window. Smoke billows behind him. "Damn Jerries. And here I am again. Tryin' to nab a commie."

At the mention of the extraction he turns. "Agent Dugan is on hand with a few others. He'll be close. We'll station a few on the train for support and a few more outside in case things get nasty." Listening now to Smythe, she seems to have all his attention while that cigar keeps on burning. "Great, a girl too. We better make sure them documents are good. "

"Somethin' 'loud' though,” he says with a dry taste in his mouth after a moment in regards to the distraction.

Coulson points toward Fury. "That's  _ his _ speciality," he confirms for Smythe, before scooting his chair back and standing. "I'll send for Stiglitz. Lord knows we don't want a guy like him getting bored."

"Let's get started on the documents. If you'll kindly head down to the third door on the left," says the handler Arnalds in a crisp tone, "we can get started. Stiglitz will have everything set up and we have a fine Leica." Man knows his cameras. Smythe gives a faint sigh and thanks whatever gods she doesn't believe in.

 


	13. Faith, Hope, and Charity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky reach an understanding about the Soviet clones, style, and their tangled love lives.

Dawn barely touches the city and Bucky has already been up for ninety minutes performing his morning routine. Hard to believe he can choose to sleep in or read a book if he wants.

Nonetheless, he works out for an hour hammering punching bags and practicing a continuous series of strikes and blows in the mansion's gym. Wounded dummies carelessly slaughtered by headshots in the firing range await repair downstairs, and one shower later, he almost feels human.

He stands in front of the medicine cabinet mirrors in the enormous bathroom he shares with Steve, examining the rough growth of the past week clouding his jaw. He tilts his head this way and that.

“Didn’t think you one to be vain,” Steve says from across the room.

Bucky almost drops the washcloth in his hand. Like him, the blond captain rarely spends long in bed. He finds a peace in the killing hours before dawn, and no surprise Steve seeks the solitude before New York awakens.

“Trying to decide I like it.”

“I’ll admit, it’s different.” Steve’s damp shirt clings to his chest, stained by the healthy sweat that only comes from a long, hard run. His routes tend to vary and, wherever he went, he smells vaguely of brine and woodsmoke.

Bucky glances at the old-fashioned straight razor mounted on a stand on the shelf. “Funny how the things we grew up are coming around again. Never thought I’d see a badger hair brush and shaving soap cakes again.”

“You know how it goes. No kid likes their parents’ stuff until they discover something even older.”

“Who you calling grandpa, Steve?” Bucky shoots a look at him and then smirks, unable to take his own dour expression too seriously. He rubs his thumb along the ragged fringe of prickles grown into his jaw and throat. Unlike some, his facial hair comes in thick and strong when untended.

Rather than invade the bathroom, Steve drops into a chair next to the desk laden by various books. He eyes the covers out of mild interest. “Figured you wanted to look like the kids in Brooklyn now?”

“Hell no.” The notion leaves him shuddering at the prospect, though his long hair and the beard now give him a disturbing similarity to those twenty-somethings prowling the streets between old industrial factories and garment workshops of his youth. “I was just thinking how it might look.”

Blue eyes soften and the blond props his elbows on his thighs, the black nylon of his jogging pants hissing under the touch. “There’s nothing wrong with changing it up. At least everyone keeps telling me to feel free to try out new things. Seems to be the motto of the decade.”

“‘Why not?’ Yeah, people don’t have much holding them back anymore.” Bucky rolls his shoulders, unbothered about being naked from the waist up. Anyone else entering the room would send him retreating for the nearest towel or the t-shirt hanging from the hook on the door. Steve is different. Showing the wreckage of his chest and starburst scars around his amputated arm doesn’t evoke the fear it used to, only the disquiet in the pit of his belly.

“You don’t need my permission, but it doesn’t look half bad.”

“Damnation by faint praise, Rogers. You better work on your inspirational speeches.” He reaches for that wooden bowl pasted by a thick layer of soap and sniffs. Bay rum and sandalwood blend together in a strong aroma immediately washing away some of the stress building up. He spills a little water over the depression in the center and starts to whip the soap into a lather with the brush.

Steve’s eyebrows go up and he has all the bluff honesty of a golden retriever. “Buck, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. You don’t have to do that.”

“Nah.” The rhythmic swish of the badger bristles soothes his wandering thoughts. “Like you said, the school of thought around here is try it and no obligation to buy it. I tried it, and hell if a beard isn’t itchy.”

“Probably a few folks forgetting about the ‘don’t buy it’ bit there. Otherwise I can’t fathom for the life of me how they fit in their torn up jeans.” Mystified, Steve shakes his head, trailing off in bemused silence. 

Rubbing the soapy lather around his cheeks and jaw, Bucky is transported back to their teenage years. Not a whole lot different now from then except the size of the bathroom, the quality of the soap, and the weight of the chrome handled razor in his hand. So essentially everything. He starts scraping off his whiskers in short, assured strokes.

Steve watches him like some kind of Broadway performance everyone raves about, almost rapt. It’s almost enough to make a man self-conscious, but the Soviets beat any kind of insecurity like that out of him a long, long time ago.

“You plan on gawking all morning?”

“Sorry. Just…”

“Yeah?” Bucky dips the foamy razor into a puddle of water in the sink, a gentle swish evaporating a cloud of suds into trails of discoloured water and floating hair.

Steve never shies from a topic and his best friend is no different. His face softens in subtle ways, easy enough to pick out. Gentle at the corners of his eyes, the lines around his mouth fading out. “Hard to believe still you’re here, that’s all. I never really expected… after the ice, you know?”

“I know. But hey, here we are, our sclerotic ways being dragged into the modern age.” Bucky keeps shaving neat lines down his cheek, pleased to see his warm skin under a shower of bubbles. “We’re old-fashioned thinkers, you know.”

“I don’t mean to sound old-fashioned but those values mean something. Not really my way to abandon them by the wayside,” Steve replies.

The oldest conversation in the book for them, the noble warrior playing at paladin and his best friend striving and probably falling short of the mark. If Steve is Arthur, he’s Mordred. Not the most comfortable idea. Not even Lancelot, who fell but at least had a few redeeming qualities. “No one asks you to, Steve.”

The blond head dips, eyes focused on the floor. Whatever he wants to say isn’t coming out and that means Bucky needs to take the lead, lance the silence in hopes of a quiet resolution. Another tap of the razor into the sink banishes more of his shorn beard.

“Penny for your thoughts, or you feel like sparring in the ring downstairs?” He’s seen the boxing ring and the mats, something much cleaner than he ever associated with the sport. “Or martial arts? Karate seems to be the hot new thing.”

“Do you even  _ know _ karate?”

“Krav Maga, jiu-jitsu, karate, taekwondo, capoeira.” Rattling off words from a dozen languages like it’s normal, his favourite foods, he never looks away from his own reflection growing more familiar by the moment.

“What?” Steve sounds more than a little flabbergasted. “Where’d the Soviets get teachers for that?”

“Defectors, Communists, captives.” He shrugs his broad shoulders, light glinting off the metallic lamellar. Treating the fact normally took conscious effort, and now he feels uneasy again. The razor trembles in his hand so he halts, rinsing it off. “Still not answering the question.”   
  
“Sorry. I’m distracted and not helping you much.”    
  
“So spill. You think anyone here judges you?” All of two people in a bedroom large enough to house a high school science class, not that it makes a difference to Bucky. He waves his open hand. 

Steve hangs his head again. No good sign, he brings out that nervous glimmer of pain in Bucky’s heart. He sighs. “Give me something to go on.”

“At least finish shaving, would you? I can’t interrupt that with something this trivial.”

“Trivial?” Bucky’s laugh rings hollow as he removes the remaining bits of his beard with greater speed than totally necessary. “Trivial was picking a banana for breakfast, not an orange. Wearing a t-shirt or a sweater. Or growing a beard to decide if I looked different from the kid… clones.”

Steve’s gaze locks onto his face, and he refuses to meet the open question burning brightly behind a cornflower wall.  _ Nope. Not walking into that minefield long as I got any choice about it _ .

“The soldiers still with SHIELD.” Not totally a question from Steve, but then his clearance is leagues and bounds ahead of Bucky’s. He nods to the statement. “You’re still visiting them?”

He rinses his hands off in the sink and puts the lid on the soap dish. “Every other day. Enough the guards probably get sick of seeing my face, given they have to double up security in case one of the prisoners gets free. You know they think I ought to be behind bars.”

“And you know full well neither Peggy or I would stand for that.” Pushing himself up from his seat, the blond captain crosses the bedroom in long, almost angry strides to the doorway, incidentally penning Bucky in the bathroom.

He’s a big man. The magical Erskine microwave transformed him so many ways, not the least size. Bucky swallows, tilting his head back.

He should stay silent. He can’t. “All things considered, the guys willing to listen to you probably aren’t the ones keeping a cell with my name on it.”    
  
Anger shades Steve’s cheeks and colours his expression in so many pained shades. “You got a clean slate, Buck. They want to argue that, they’ll find a whole lot more trouble than they planned for.”

Once a scrapper, always a scrapper, standing up for the undefended. Not that Bucky ever wants to find himself in that boat. His mouth tightens at that willingness to defend him, the sentiment at war with the shame.

Never able to hide that from Steve, who has a nose strong as any hound for emotional disturbances. He reaches out to put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder as Bucky turns his face, and by some quirk of fate, he ends up rubbing his clean-shaven cheek against those fingers, hair entwined and entangled around the digits.

They both freeze.

Who moves first? Pull back and give insult, stay put and deliver the wrong message. Bucky’s heart hammers, his eyes going unfocused. For all his experience, nothing gives on the matter of approach.

“I’ll always be in your corner, you know.” The hoarse promise comes from a long way away.

He nods and by dint nuzzles into the offertory palm pressed to his cheekbone, and without knowing how it got there, Steve slides his thumb behind the shell of his ear. Bucky almost shuts his eyes.

“I know. But they’re my responsibility now, Steve. You understand that better than anyone.” 

The gossamer thin contact uniting them deepens even as the tenuous roots of something building sink into Bucky’s thoughts. He bows to the enormity, his knees locked tight, his eyes daring to close.  


No one else would understand. Clint? He’s bound to question why the hell anyone cares about the Russians. Maybe Peggy sees them as intelligence assets or, at worst, weapons to be destroyed. But they’re  _ his _ . They wear his face. They speak his tongue.

Steve barely strokes his hairline, the tender flesh behind his ear. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” The words ring hollow and nervous to his own ears, but the truth bleeds out for all. “I have to save them if I can. Whatever happened in the USSR to make them, I don’t know what it is, but I need to know.”

The warm palm cups his face without failing, and a moment later Steve steps up to pull him into a hug he never asked for. Not until those strong arms settle around him can he grasp how badly he needs this, craves it like a plant seeks the sun.

“Then you do what you have to do. Leave dealing with the director and SHIELD to me.” The hard point of Steve’s chin rests atop his head, and they shift to draw nearer. 

Finally he can breathe, and in that moment, the enormous weight of expectation recedes. Fear clamps his ankle like that damn bracelet Peggy insisted on, but he can live with it. Sergeant Barnes, finally linked to the world after forty years out of step.

“Thank you.” Not adequate, but that will have to do.

“I’ve got your back. Always. Those kids do too.”   
  
“Means the world. If they’re a threat…” He can’t finish the sentence for all he wants to, blurring lines of loyalty and faith coming together. Opening himself up to the truth of their existence means a risk, and Bucky has always been impulsive. But the riddle of the super soldiers wearing his face goes beyond impulse; this is bait, and he has a very good idea who lies on the other end. Tentacles reaching out from the Soviet Union will never let him rest.

“We deal with it together. Cross that bridge only when we get to it.”

“Wiser words never said. That’s why I follow you into the brink, you know?”

Steve crushes him closer, and kisses his brow, then his temple. Rough, fleeting wisps of touch that barely hint at the heat of that long mouth so easily given to smiling.

He tilts his head up again. The question dies on his lips.

Uncertainty lies like a mask on those proud, familiar features. Trust weighed down, drowning, under the different views from an era of closed minds. Nothing else matters to Bucky as he lifts his hand -- cold, steel and vibranium laced together -- to touch Steve, guiding him closer as he stands taller in that embrace.

The stunned sound when their lips meet is almost worth the four decades of separation and pain, the terror and the hardships. Almost.

And then not much matters at all as Steve kisses him back.


	14. Extracting Truth From a Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy Carter and senior SHIELD staff meet their contact LEO. What they learn is disturbing indeed.

_1030 hours. East Berlin. Friedrichshain Borough. 51.5159'N, 13.4546'E._

Friedrichshain is best known as an industrial district, badly affected by Allied bombs. Forty years on and the reconstruction in oddly classic Soviet style sees a skyline staggered by workers palaces. That is true, at least closest to the wall separating east from west. However, at the southern tail of the borough, things look considerably rougher. Construction pits abound; Berlin looks rough here, the houses shabbier, the Brutalist apartments rougher.

Pitted streets give way to empty shops where small German signs announce business hours never to be fulfilled. Working class, still, this shady corner suits shady dealings. There used to be a pharmacy here, no longer functioning. Another shop sells paper products, manned by no one. The upstairs spaces are vacant, full of rusty equipment and empty rooms with the occasional broken chair or filing cabinet. Graffiti discoloured by age strips the walls of any welcome.

Here Peggy Carter meets the asset called Leo, a man wearing a dull khaki coat and the cheap suit of an academic or businessman. His current cover probably has to do with pharmaceuticals, as his wife knows him. It makes sense for the shop below.

SHIELD can be sure he is armed with no more than a briefcase full of papers affiliated with medical contracts, orders, requests that will never be filled by starving hospitals on the eastern side that can't obtain the refills required.

Peggy Carter's in disguise: drab clothing, hair gone blonde. Nothing that would make her look out of place. Having successfully made it across the border, and with two of the people that hold the highest rank in her organization -- not to mention holding her highest trust -- she feels as secure as one can when they're behind enemy lines. Her German is flawless, and that's the language she'll be using today. "So, why don't we start with a simple discussion of what you think you can offer us, Mr…"

One of those two people, Phil Coulson, has also maintained his disguise. The clothing changes little, still in a style that is designed to go unnoticed, but articles have been chosen that suggest a more rugged life. Aiding this. he hasn't shaved in thirty-six hours, allowing stubble to form on his otherwise smooth face. He's not one to miss a single detail; even the stubble has been lightened a shade to suggest that he is, in fact, blonde. A set of spectacles rest beneath an alpine hat, and he comes armed with a smile that could lend trust to anyone.

Deceit comes in many forms, and today, Coulson is ready to play any angle. For the time, he adopts that of quiet observer. It's a play Peggy knows quite well, considering disguise is a standard procedure when Phil is involved.

Leo is not much to look at, but then the best rarely are. A man of average height, about 5'8" and distinctly unremarkable build, his sandy blond hair mark him as a proper Aryan by a canon four decades out of date. He speaks German as a loyal member of the Party. His release to stand in the air of his American counterparts is made with ease; he clearly lacks discomfort being around other spies who hold his fate in the balance. Clear, plain eyes more grey than blue are framed by heavy, metal rimmed glasses.

"Mr. Berg," he says politely. "Wilhelm Berg." No doubt they are willing to see his identity card and his wallet is an open book, right down to the ration cards and travel permit to get around on the trains through East Berlin. He lays the fold of stitched leather on a table. "Pharmaceutical executive by trade. I have been assigned to the East Berlin region for the past three years. I have much more experience dealing with particular clients along the border zones. Vienna as a primary hub." His German wouldn't imply coming out of Austria; they have a more formal approach, less influenced by Prussia.

Peggy nods. Whether that's his name or not is really moot, something to call him,another step in the dance they all do. "Mr. Berg," she accedes. She reaches down to the wallet, eyes examining it before she puts fingers to leather, lifting it and looking at the paperwork inside with a practiced eye. "Let's cut right to the chase, shall we? You offer quite a bit -- and no doubt you know you'd need to to arrange the sort of thing you're asking for. Yet your position provides you what must not be an unpleasant life for you and your family." Business executive cover, KGB agent actual. "So, the key question, why?"

Coulson lifts a briefcase he carries, worn and unimpressive, and rests it upon the table. A code dialed in and the case unlatches. From within, he retrieves a tablet of paper that must have been in there for at least eight years, a booklet with more than half the pages ripped out. Dangling a recently sharpened pencil, he settles into a notetaker’s position.

The dance, indeed; the man with a blond wig is the woman's assistant, and the notes are, in fact, notes that would be taken in regard to this staged pharmaceutical meeting. Buried within those notes, however, he implants secret messages, messages only Peggy should decipher. Coulson watches this 'Mr. Berg' for any sign of deceit, any tell, any twitch that might suggest a lie, a play, a hiccup in what otherwise has been an operation moving flawlessly.

Wilhelm Berg, William Berg. Is there a pun in there? The man smiles blandly. He gestures around him. "Comfortable how, Frau? My daughter and my wife live in a thin-walled apartment, same as the others. We have our allotments same as everyone else," he says. His tone is mild and calm. "Our lives have been quiet as long as the surface ice stays intact. A good shake breaks up all we have." He does not pace, addressing them both directly, his gaze moving back and forth between Coulson and Peggy. "Clearly you come because I offer something valuable to you and your organization. They won't tell you precisely what it is because they probably cannot countenance the truth. I hardly do and I have seen the proof of a project that robs my own countrymen of what makes them individuals." His jaw sets

Peggy's lips curl just a bit, a slight smile. "Of course, Herr Berg. We all know that everyone is equal in the East,” she replies to his comment about allotments; they both know that the vaunted communism is nowhere as egalitarian as they would have others believe. There are haves and have-nots, as with any society. A senior KGB agent is definitely a "have.”

"Politics separate us, yes. Above politics, we share much in common," Leo says in a quiet tone. "Our humanity. We want a safe, secure country. We wish our families to thrive. Our neighbours to be productive, our communities to have a common purpose and spirit. I believe our leadership tries to reach this, most of the time. However, I have proof that independent parties are undermining their efforts. They want to cast us into an age of fear and subjugation. My father didn't fight in the war and throw off the Nazis to see us yoked to a cart to hell. It is, yes, a grandiose statement. But that is literally how we go, and where we go, America follows."

While Coulson notes every word, Peggy proceeds on. "You're correct; we're here for this valuable information. On the other hand, you're asking us to risk a number of our assets to make this happen. And I'm sure you understand that the amount of effort my organization is willing to commit to is going to be proportionate to the value of that information. I'm not fool enough to ask you to lay all your cards on the table." If he did, he'd lose his bargaining strength. She is no fool. "You're going to have to give me something more than vague allusions before I recommend to my superiors that they proceed with this. Tell me about about this project."

Coulson cannot help but notice the level of Communist rhetoric in the way their contact speaks. He's not one to get involved in politics, but the conversation draws the subtlest of upturns right there at the corner of his lips. He pauses in his writing to rest the pencil evenly against the tablet, only so that he might fold his hands in a pleasant manner. Still observing, he's yet to see any of those signs he's looking for; either there's nothing there, or Herr Berg is good. Damned good.

"The government has a perennial issue with youth and dissidents. Often they are one and the same. Police wish to break up the groups, as they often terrorize their neighbours with an anti-community sentiment. The key demographic are unemployed, truant adolescents, typically male. Nearly all in question are under age twenty. Most are under fifteen," Leo explains in his way. He's almost calling for patience, the directness of his speech and stillness telling. "Committees struggle to gainfully direct these young people to some kind of activity before they become a burden. They are not sent to schools or gymnasia, as you might expect. Various projects reassigned them to factories, adoptive families, or different communities." Read: work camps or forced moves elsewhere. The GDR is not a nice place.

Peggy is stone-faced, giving nothing away. Her mouth lengthens slightly as Leo draws lines through the veil surrounding Soviet internal affairs and East German activities.

Leo taps the side of his head. "They are children, Frau. I am a father. One of these reassignment projects broke the pattern. We suspected fraud, misappropriation of funds. I investigated what few documents there are. Over five years, over two hundred children were deemed incapable of rehabilitation and vanished. These unfortunates are assigned to the same branches of an organisation in no official books, even ours. Their new assignments don't exist, in locations that are not there. Bureaucrats who are ghosts round up children and transport them on trains that arrive at their destinations empty.”

Phil’s pencil skims over the paper, ripped edges flattened under his wrist. He glances up periodically, the record halted for a moment.

"They aren't going to re-education in Moscow, or in the east. There are no bodies anywhere to be found, Frau,” says the KGB agent. He still holds an easy professionalism about him, far from stiff backed, his tone bland. “Selected adolescents are being made to disappear, processed. My assets can confirm almost all of them are showing deviant ability in some fashion. We have enough proof to surmise they are being weaponized. Distilled, for purposes that are tied to a broader program kept from the Council of Ministers, the Marshal of the Soviet Union. We do not condone using our young people, or children, for practices that deny they are human, that make them into… Pieces of materiel, bits and pieces you would reassemble for a weapon or throw out like trash when they do not perform. The youngest was two. The next transport is due in a week."

Peggy's expression remains unmoved, which is a testament to just how good a spy she is, because she is certainly anything but unmoved. The blonde woman nods to Coulson, as if indicating for him to take notes. Instead, it's a double check with her colleague, making certain he hasn't noticed anything she hasn't, about anything that might indicate this is a ruse or doublecross.

"I see. And does this information of yours include actionable information, Herr Berg? As much as my superiors would be interested in the existence of this project, ultimately, if there's nothing they can take steps forward on, it remains of minimal use." This is really the cornerstone of it, and subtle shifts in her posture, prearranged signals, indicate that if Berg's answer is in the affirmative, this is a go.

Indeed, it isn't long before Coulson begins to scrawl notes again, his utilization of the German language one of practiced perfection. There are a handful of messages within the language that Peggy will notice; particular words that, to them, are a code of sorts.

Youth and dissidents, breakers of law. Not lawbreakers. Utilizing the word in that fashion is a message to Peggy that Coulson has deduced that Berg is not being deceitful.

 _ <20\. Most <15\. >2\. _ Also a code for Peggy to decipher. He confirms the manner in which Wilhelm has spoken of the Marshal suggests he is, indeed, one of the Marshal's men. “Leo” -- Wilhelm -- holds the rank, position, and ties that their Intel has suggested.

The director finishes reading, raising her gaze from the paper to Leo.

Transport due in one week. The 'one week' is circled, rather than underlined. Coulson pauses in writing, leveling his eyes upon Wilhelm when Peggy lays down the gauntlet. He can be a fairly disarming fellow, it's true, but there are times when Phil Coulson is able to look into another person's eyes in a manner that, quite frankly, could freeze water. This is one of those times.

Leo smiles thinly. "Timetables for the departure times, train car numbers, pertinent information of the routes and lines. They are through trains into the USSR. They take priority even over the industrial deliveries, and probably the Chairman's carriage if he were to travel."

His expression is terribly bland, and those mannerisms Coulson is looking for are scrubbed clean. "We have three detention sites in East Berlin assigned for that upcoming transportation. The children and their monitors will have to be taken there, and soon. The monitors must be aware of the actual destination, and interrogation should confirm what we already have on paper. In the files are profiles of those disappeared over the last year, and those who have been assigned for re-education now. We are expecting somewhere between ten and twenty this time. My assets have the full records on microfilm, key assets, who may be behind the processing, and locations for suspected processing facilities. The secondary programs following this, too, for it's not the only black ops project treated in this manner. None are this protected."

Director of SHIELD does not stipulate immunity to the human heart. Peggy swallows through the news, blinking, normalizing all the tells to enemies in their cloak and dagger world. “Go on.”

Leo tugs on his coat sleeve. "We have the firsthand passcodes used by the different sites. This conspiracy goes beyond the Soviet Union and our allies, it goes directly into your own friends in the west. Men who are monitoring for useful assets they want to bring in this program and the other clustered around it. If they can make positive gains combining the… abilities… with a perfected template, they have a model to infiltrate enemy countries, suppress those who disagree with their agenda. This goes beyond soldiers. It is tinkering, a dangerous level of it. We know who their agents in our territory are. I'm have prepared those lists, personnel files, all supporting documentation we have. Am I correct you would agree these must not be perpetuated?"

Peggy considers, listening. "I believe that's sufficient for us to move on the issue, Herr Berg. While our political leanings may be on opposite sides, I think that in this we can agree that we are in accord." She looks to Coulson, then back to their contact. "We can proceed. My colleague will arrange the details with you to handle the orchestration of your family members." That's work better left to Coulson and Fury; Peggy's aware that her gender still carries implications of lesser competency that she wishes to avoid. Besides, she'll be needing to coordinate with the larger bulk of SHIELD forces to make this happen.

Leo doesn't move beyond that. He has given the hook, the line, and the reason to yank him off a sinking ship. He nods in understanding. "Naturally, my assets will not have cover when this goes live. I will provide the particulars as necessary." He makes that sound so incredibly _simple_ , a matter of fetching the post from the office after work.

There's a sheet of ice that cannot be broken. Phil shows absolutely no physical reaction to the bomb that was just dropped by Wilhelm Berg. Rather, he folds the piece of paper over its binding, in order to prepare a fresh one. He then reaches down to collect his briefcase once more, and lifts it onto an empty spot on the table.

"Herr Berg? Hugo Stiglitz." He offers a warm handshake, the smile on his face somewhat humored. Until today, Hugo Stiglitz apparently never existed.

"You must forgive me," Coulson carries on with perfect, conversational German, not this Hochdeutsch bullshit they teach in American schools. "I'm a man of details, and sometimes, the level to which I collect these details can be… unnerving. I'll beg of you to be patient with me. See, I've found that details can mean the difference between profit and… well. Not profit."

Leo’s handshake to Phil is particularly firm, precise. It's not entirely the gesture of a man who spends his day pushing paper around. Neither is the bearing, military hidden under the layers of civilian life. 

Coulson flashes Wilhelm a charming smile, then opens the briefcase to reveal a bottle of vodka, two glasses, and a collection of accoutrements including local maps, a book of various medicines (within the binding of which is concealed a very sharp knife), and some others. "A drink? Or, shall we just… cut the potatoes and move along?"

"No drink while at work. A messy and regrettable habit," says Leo. "Let us save the toast for the other side, when we may be assured the taste will go down. Your stomach may be too turned and curdle perfectly good drink."

Details, as it is to be. He will stand until bidden to sit, sit until called to stand. He's on their time, politely. If this isn't a Stasi ruse and someone is calling the mothership of the coup they're about to perpetuate. How far does a spy trust a spy?

 


	15. Volatile Weapons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD has a piece of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. A doctor calls for compassion, and Assistant Director Fury confronts his future.

_ 1045 hours. SHIELD Operations West Berlin. 52.5200’ N, 13.4050’ E. _

* * *

Morning brings a certain hum of activity to the West Berlin operations centre. Never mind the highest people in the organisation happen to be installed, or headed to cross the border to make contact. Every asset who can be in play is, technicians on the horns and monitoring radios, handlers contacting their spies, the usual assortment of informants being tapped just in case. If the military is aware of what and who are present, they haven't altered the rhythms in the Allied quarters of a city deep in the heart of the GDR. West Berlin is the cold war in a nutshell, heavily subsidized to show off the joys and wonders of western life.

That includes a secure telephone line, as much as anything is secure, routed right into command. Agent Arnalds, one of the seniors here and the handler for Agent Smythe who made contact with Leo in the first place, sends out his polite little secretary to go and find Mr. Fury. In fact, find him, stop his car, fetch his coffee, spill the damn coffee on him.

The woman is chasing him down now in her perfunctory German way, such that she inclines her head. "Confidential communication from America. Says it's urgent."

Fury is fuming, as always. The interruption sets him to sitting up at a borrowed desk and the lukewarm coffee slops over the mug. Does the man ever sleep? Apparently not, considering he sat there throughout the night. "Can't get a damn thing done." Shaking his head, he wipes the coffee off his coat as much as possible and follows her. "This better be important," he mumbles as he keeps step with the secretary.

The polite secretary shows a flinty exterior to the complaints. She gestures and says, "This way, please." Through two manned doors and down a corridor, they end up in an office that boasts a phone, a table with paper, and not much else. Given the depths of the building it rests in, chances are good the room is free of bugs or parabolic microphones, and whatever else the Soviets try to throw. The lack of an ashtray practically insults the man’s iconic cigar.

Agent Arnalds waits within and gives Fury a perfunctory nod out of respect for the man’s station. "Call from America. O Division psychologist, level five. Doctor Elizabeth Farnsworth. Says she's got an incident and needs you on the line to advise."

Fury just eyes the secretary. He swallows anything he has to say and spits out smoke with a healthy exhale from his cigar. A quick shrug of the shoulders and he sits. His gaze bores into the others until they think to leave. Calmly, he picks up the phone. Putting it to his ear he says nothing for a good two minutes. The smoke leaks out from his mouth and nose.

The secretary steps out and Arnalds follows, shutting the door. Not before he says, "Just green light when we can return. You can step out when you are done."

The woman on the other end sounds vaguely English, rather than straight American. The line has a tinny quality though. "Agent Fury?" This question is a formality. "Elizabeth Farnsworth, New York. Level five clearance."

He grudgingly stirs to life. The brusque quality is no different here than in person, only separated by a few thousand miles. "Fury here. What’s the situation?" Resting his free elbow on the table, he waits.

Elizabeth is not one to be awed through a phone as she plunges ahead on her purpose. Precise, crisp language comes through the protected line. "I represent O Division," as in, the shrinks and psychoanalysts, "and I've been assigned to profile the subjects brought in from Lebanon. Colloquially, our patients who share a physical resemblance to Agent Barnes. The Winter Soldier."

Nick flicks ashes on the floor as he listens. Perhaps rude, all said and done, but the West Germans haven’t bothered to decorate the office. "Report." He goes back to inhaling heavily on the cigar as she continues. He squints as she brings up Bucky. "Well, are they as off their rocker as he is? I assume you got their psych profiles to compare.” He straightens up, staring at the grey, dingy wall. “Is the resemblance as uncanny as I've been led to believe? What is it you need? Compare notes?"

The professional reaction on the other side must be galling, though her professionalism remains intact. "The patients in question suffer from obvious psychological traumas as a result of unknown sources, and in my professional opinion, torture, negative reinforcement, and violations of the Geneva Convention." Elizabeth doesn't mince words. "I've professionally observed four of the subjects for more than thirty hours a week since we recovered them. Their baseline behaviours show a building rapport to us. They are by no means incoherent or erratic, irrational, or mentally handicapped in any sense. But let's cut to the chase. I am calling because the Director issued an order to isolate the patients at the Triskelion in individual cells. We of course complied."

Fury makes a noise of relative assent, that grinding impatience flickering out. “Good career move, listening to the orders that come down. No one argues with Director Carter without good reason. I’m taking it you’re about to give me good reason?”

Elizabeth sighs on the other side of the Atlantic. "I must make strenuous objections and, in lieu of reaching her, I'm talking to you. Solitary confinement for these patients is tantamount to reversing our weeks of work with them. They're responding badly, particularly Nikita and Evgeniy. They show the highest degree of… difficulties, you could say, consistent with soldiers who have come back from Vietnam. The decline has been worrying for Evgeniy. My hands are tied if I cannot get permission to get  _ someone _ in there, or at least broaden the protocols to have him out and about."

Nick listens, an unseen gargoyle scowling the longer the psychologist speaks. The audible sound of annoyance is clear. "I wouldn't normally go over her head? When last did you speak with her?" He removes the cigar, eyeing the burning end he turns towards himself. "You know what, it doesn't matter. Let me it this way, Doc. If  _ you _ think they are a harm to themselves and you would consider them, any of them, an asset to SHIELD -- whether it being from a future aspect or simply for knowledge that they may have -- then you do everything you can to preserve that. If at any moment you feel that they would endanger personnel or their value to us is limited then strict isolation. I don't want the possibility of losing a valuable piece on this board to become a reality.”

Farnsworth puffs out a breath audible over the line. Letting off steam or uncomfortable, it's hard to say. "Three of my personnel are in front of a committee explaining the ins and outs of these boys, when we haven't got an adequate picture to make a full diagnosis. I will say as much, they aren't hurting anyone and we have no illusions over here in O they are anything but potential threats.” Her tone becomes softly adamant, grooved by the professional timbre adopted to present to the unknown. “Risk assessment allows them few privileges, and they get nowhere near mission critical sites.”

“You answer directly to me now, doctor, unless the Director says otherwise.” In his cloud of grim shadows,  I will speak with the director personally. I will contact you tomorrow and I want a full report. Do what you deem necessary. That's your field. You think you need added support? I am curious as to why Ms. Carter ordered that but I doubt either of us have time for the whole story right now. Makes me uneasy though."

“Confinement is causing anxious responses. Evgeniy in particular is…” She hesitates. “The symptoms don't line up at all, Agent Fury. The shaking, heavy sweating, obvious discomfort. As a precaution he was restrained, and he doesn't seem to be responding to that. He isn't hallucinating as far as we can tell, but his readings are concerning. Accelerated heart rate, erratic breathing, monitored blood pressure far too high. Nothing in his files explains what’s going on. Nor what I’ve got clearance for in the rest. Did Agent Barnes ever…?”

The chair scrapes back when the assistant director stands, phone still pressed to his cheek. “Ever lose control, Doctor Farnsworth? Start shaking and convulsing?”

Her silence cracks after several seconds. He strains to hear the scrape of her pen against paper, the hints of hasty typing. “Yes. Any kind of symptoms along those lines.”

“That’s not something you’re cleared to know. Monitor him and see if any of your other patients start acting the same. The instant they do, you call.” Fury drops into the familiar cadence of command. “The minute they start up singing together, you call. If they so much as blink out of time, you call.”

“Understood, sir.” It’s not an answer she likes, being told no, undercut.

"I am sending a few agents your way to keep an eye on them. Do not, I repeat, do not relax your orders from the director unitl they arrive. Are we clear?"

Her teeth probably grind as hard as the stub of his cigar into the table. Farnsworth murmurs her assent. “ I’ll keep him in observed isolation until your people get here. He's behaving like he's going through withdrawal. I have absolutely no explanation for it. We haven't been dosing their medications with anything other than mild sedatives, nothing out of the normal regimen.”

“How much do you have on their previous history? Soviets are known to experiment on their civilians and their soldiers,” Fury adds.

"Not enough. The med staff aren't talking about changing anything up, and Evgeniy is the only one demonstrating the symptoms.” She rustles papers in the background. “I've got my Russian interpreters on their way, once they give me back Doctor Ricoult from the committee taking testimony. But we've had them for eight weeks, strict security. What the hell were they dosed with?"

When she asks what they were dosed with he grunts. "Above your pay grade, doc. And you listen here. Despite what yer' little notepad tells you,  _ I _ am telling you that each and every one of those patients is potentially dangerous. The director knows that as well as I.”

“We’ve never said they weren’t.”

“I don’t think you quite understand.  _ One _ of them might clear out a building in about an hour and vanish. You’ve got, what, seven under surveillance? Believe me when I say we’re sitting on a Soviet arsenal,” Fury warms to the conversation, throwing down facts as cool as any poker shark at the table in Vegas. In his element, he paces as long as the curly phone cord allows him. “They look and talk like the Winter Soldier. Now imagine what havoc they might wreak with even half his skills. You  _ see  _ the risk. They’re not patients, they’re nuclear missiles with a face, and we haven’t got enough intel to grasp what purpose they were put to.”

“They’re still men.”

“Never said they weren’t, Doctor. But considering Agent Barnes gave the director more than a few grey hairs, let’s play to caution. You hear boo, you shut them down. That’s an order.”

Elizabeth is quiet, probing. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. That being said, I will still give you clearance to give 'em what you see fit. If thats exercise, a cigarette or joining a damn book club. There psyches are what I would assume to be quite fragile, so nurse 'em along. Find out what you can. Play it cool.”

“Of course, sir.”

“No unnecessary risks. Understand, I don't want this biting either of us in the ass. Barnes is unstable enough and he's running on the streets." Maybe too much heart on the sleeve there, but Nick Fury is the kind of man with all the subtlety of a hand grenade chucked into a barrel of oatmeal. "Are you in any way unclear? Wait on my personnel. They will be there in the A.M. at the latest."

"Agent Fury," the doctor says quietly, "O Division has to know about all chemical interventions to perform our work. Something that would induce a withdrawal symptom would have to be cleared and none of the med staff here know what this would be. If you're talking a program above my pay grade, fine, but I’m questioning who could get access to our patients, who could do that.”

Fury remains silent but for a noncommittal hum.

She presses on. “If one of them is having fits and seizures, they're a risk. Imagine Captain America on an LSD bender and tell me how well that looks for the public. I know they aren't popular, these patients, and I  _ am _ concerned that someone may have slipped one something."

Let him chew on that. Or his stogie, either way. She rattles something, probably paper. 

“Doc, if you’ve got some inkling of a spy in a spy agency, you might want to spit it out.” He regrets that lack of a fresh cigar or a light. Something to rectify now.

"I don’t have a name, just the evidence. It’s been weeks and they tested clean.” The doctor again pauses. “I will try — when your people arrive — to reintroduce one of the patients to Evgeniy. They do better together. If Barnes is somewhere in residence, send him down to me. Maybe the visual resemblance is enough. No action until they show up in the AM tomorrow."

"Agent Barnes is unavailable as far as I know but I will look into it." Fury flashes a look at the door, and all hell is breaking loose out there, three agents dashing by. Shit meets the fan, sure as sunshine in the morning. “Otherwise, let’s find out what we got. Soviet super weapons in our hands, that’s worth something. Try not to annihilate New York by taking them on a walk until I get back, doc.”


	16. Project: Nikita

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even inside a committee meant to neutralize international terrorist threats, there's sympathy for the Devil.

The woman of about thirty sits at the table, steepling her hands over a manila folder. Identical briefs are placed in front of all the participants in a squared-off U surrounding her. Normally she would thrive under the spotlight, but the literal hot lights pivoted to highlight her smaller, lower brown desk threaten to bring perspiration to her brow.

Not for nothing Doctor Farnsworth warned Diane to wear a black suit. She resists the urge to pull out her handkerchief and dab her brow. Water sits to her left, a concession she refuses to call upon lest these ivory tower bureaucrats in their formal black and starched white look down upon her as a woman performing the delicate task of psychoanalysis.

Presenting her findings at three in the morning hardly constitutes her idea of a good time, but one doesn’t turn down an armed driver and an escort. SHIELD condones these bouts of bureaucratic interference only sporadically.

She doesn’t really know what part of the anonymous grey concrete complex claimed by the intelligence agencies she is in, and Diane frankly doesn’t care very much. The sooner she completes her part of this, the sooner she returns to bed and get one day closer to her holiday in Nassau. Elizabeth Farnsworth can take the bullet next time, instead of her girl Friday.

The committee chairman leans forward to his microphone. “State your name, role, and clearance for the record.”

She clears her throat. “Diane Ricoult, psychologist with O Division. Rank 4 clearance, SHIELD.”

That subtle accent weaves around her soft-spoken voice. Most think her French, and they’re not wrong, but they neglect to review her files often. SHIELD assigned her to Farnsworth and O Division’s secret project because of complete fluency in Russian, an acquisition from her days admiring the lost golden era of art and innovation. She still misses the Hermitage.

Pages flip as senior personnel withdraw the ten page double-spaced, typed report she prepared for them. Their staff probably briefed them and provided the talking points while she was summarily patted down, questioned, and re-examined by three layers of security beyond anything seen in D.C. Diane trusts her voice would remain clear; sleep dogged her these past days, but hasn’t it for everyone?

Right now, she might even find Phil Coulson blowing up the aisle a sign of God’s favour.

“Begin when you are comfortable, Dr. Ricoult,” prompts the aging gentleman to the left, lording over her a little like a raven turned grey. She likes the beakiness of his nose, the openness of his bluff face. All the more reason to distrust him.

Diane folds her hands, briefly reviewing the top page. “I must offer the standard disclaimer regarding the patient. During our observations at Site I, he demonstrated a very deep-seated distrust and suspicion for all SHIELD employees. We have at best an incomplete view, and with the classified files…”

The chairman waves his hand. “Yes, yes, Doctor, we are well-aware of the restrictions placed on your reports and will review the documents in that light. Proceed.

So like him to cut her off. Diane smiles that graceful tip of the mouth that she perfected in university, time and time again in front of the fuddy-duddies at Northwestern questioning the value of a  _ woman _ in psychology. As if Freud himself hadn’t valued ladies in his work, and not simply as muses and paying clients.

She says, “Offering a diagnosis or full analysis is  _ unconventional _ under these circumstances. It is the opinion of O Division that the patient called Nikita suffered extensive psychological trauma. His distrust provides a distorted impression and only through building a rapport with him will we gain a better insight into the subject. You see, Doctor Farnsworth has petitioned for a committed team of physicians, caregivers, and experts to work personally with him. We may see improved results over time.”

“Noted,” another agent says. Boredom seeps from his voice. Time to get to the point, then.

Diane leans forward a fraction. Far be it from her to advocate loudly.

“Nikita appears to be roughly 27 years old. Analysis of his accent implies he was born and raised in proximity to Moscow. Linguistic analysis must be treated as inconclusive, given incomplete reports due to the patient's unwillingness to speak.”

Frowns greet that revelation.

She continues in crisp tones, allowing little emotion to colour her words. “We have no reason to believe he had formal education. He is not illiterate, showing ability to read in Russian.”

“But educated surely somehow,” says a man to the chairman’s right.

She nods. “His ability to fight clearly indicate military background, experience on par with special forces. He probably has developed a degree of independent judgment and a capacity for initiative. However, we have not observed any personal leadership traits or indications of an ethos.” Her piercing gaze roves among them, daring their interruption with not an iota of patience for the slight. One of the SHIELD committee opens her mouth and thinks the better of it, yielding to Diane’s pointed stare. “He is primarily a man of action rather than thought. Intellectual exercises have not provided serious stimulus whereas he appears to develop an interest in other physical activities, particularly training techniques.”

Papers rustle. The chairman consults his yellow legal pad, and asks, “How is his social development? Personal interactions, relationships, sense of empathy? Things like that.”

“The patient does not crave social recognition or company,” she replies. “Left alone, he can remain still and unmoving for long stretches. Not moving at all, ladies and gentlemen, unstimulated. Nor does he ask for anything to entertain himself with. He waits. He infrequently asks questions or engages with others, clearly taking no pleasure in playing on a suitable audience or receptive family. Including other patients at Site I.”

They don’t like that. No one wants a loose cannon, especially one who can tear any of them apart. She reads their shoulders rising, bodies sitting back in seats as the information melts in.  _ No doubt _ , Diane muses,  _ they thought the patients were a hive mind. _ A common misconception, even with twins.  _ Look alike and act alike? _ A fallacy outside the community, though she isn’t going to raise it here.

“Perhaps it would be the staff in O Division?” That from someone in the intel side of things. She loathes the political game, and Dr. Farnsworth would have shot the suit down in a heartbeat. She lacks Farnsworth’s credentials or father to shield her.

“This cannot be attributed to interpreters alone. Similar reactions have been found with the patient. He does not initiate private conversation. However, he clearly demonstrates an awareness of his social station which entitles him to respect. He reacts negatively to slights against himself by outsiders and English-speakers,” she replies, injecting a touch of her French accent stronger than necessary. Let ‘em chew on that.

Revelations don’t mollify the committee. They flipped paper and scribbled notes. “Certain members,” says the bland gentleman representing Northeastern Ops, “have pushed for eliminating the risk to SHIELD. Based on your experience, how malleable is the subject… Nikita?”

_ What, you think is he a dog badly trained? _ The psychologist smiles again, her eyes hard. “We would believe he is a prisoner of rigid Soviet dogma and subject to patriotic slogans. He seems perfectly capable of complying with direct orders and doctrines. This cannot be confirmed. The patient has not elaborated on his convictions.”

The Ops manager scowls until the chairman catches his eye and shakes his head. “Please elaborate, Doctor Ricoult.”

She warms to her subject, even if she can’t warm to the hollow-eyed spectre haunting that room and sitting wordlessly in an undecorated room. No fathoming what goes on in that head, even as he forces himself to total physical exhaustion or spends hours wordless, emerging only to hand over the metal headphones to a waiting flunky. Ruled by the clock, ruled by some distant spectre and forced to be a discarded toy soldier until then.  _ What a life. _

Raising a shoulder, she nearly shrugs. “When arriving at Site I, Nikita was a largely unknown quality, seemingly a soldier with typical special forces training. The picture he presented to observers is not impressive. From all appearances, he was a reserved, silent, obtuse, uninspired man, with something of a detached air.

“Events show there is a great deal more to Nikita than the appearance suggested. Behind the exterior lies a shrewd native intelligence, an agile mind, ambition, drive, and ruthlessness. His own colleagues undoubtedly recognize from experience he is neither witless or foolishly impulsive. His resourcefulness and sense of timing are evident in combat scenarios.”

“You sound unduly impressed.” That’s Howland, out of Chicago. Better to defect to a life as a cassava farmer than be under him, pig with no concept of science. Diane lets the offensive comment slide off her.

She stares up at his cold brown eyes, the patrician features contorted into a sneer. No one misses the bad blood between them. They’re all spies, of course. “With all due respect, Agent Howland, you have not seen him fight.”

“I’ve reviewed the reels.”

Bullshit. “The reels can’t follow as fast as they go. Like watching a horse gallop. We don’t see their hooves off the ground.”

“Doctor,” a mild admonishment comes from the chairman.

Let them stew. “Is there any further question on his intellectual capability? As I note below,” she says. “By all indications, he is a person with some capacity for detecting nuances and subtleties. He can see things in black and white, and responds rather positively when confronted by shades of grey. He can manage moderately involved intellectual reasoning, but his spontaneous reasoning skills are diminished by limited range of experience.”

“So there’s a hope to defeat them after all if you surprise ‘em.”

The consensus rolls through the sides of the table, washing over her. They need time to process all this. But if she’s going to keep a man alive, she better offer a sop to their pride.

“These aren’t soldiers of fortune. They are plucked from miserable circumstances, traumatized to fit a very specific dogma, and processed according to strict methods outlawed by international conventions and  _ humanity. _ ” They hear the stress in her voice, even as she bridles her anger. “A good government does not strip a person of their individuality to make way for a selective set of behaviours. These patients do not even demonstrate tacit acceptance of social mores because no one took the time to expose them. We do that for children in elementary school, as I am sure you know. They do not recognize nuanced social functions, which might cause my esteemed colleagues to unfairly conclude the patients are hostile or threatening when, simply, they have no comprehension of the things you and I take for granted.”

She puts her hands flat on the paper. “This is a sobering reality for SHIELD. We have in our custody a number of men unprepared for the outside world, selectively cultivated as far as I can tell for excellence in pursuit of war and very little else. It is my and O Division’s recommendation they  _ not _ be treated as immediate threats intent on lashing out at all of us. None of our firsthand observations support that. They aren’t ranting about the supremacy of Stalin and down with American values. Rather, they are veterans of a conflict.”

The men want to interrupt. She reads their gritted teeth and hardened faces, finding no warm audience for what she says. Vilifying outsiders is easier than accepting common ground. But still, she has to try for the sake of common humanity. Maybe not the taciturn men staring into space and waiting the day their ticket came due. But for something. Someone.

“Strike the previous statement from the record. I will remind you, Doctor, just the facts on the psychological analysis are required. Further deviations will result to an end of your testimony and we will conclude,” sighs the chairman. Fatigue burns deep into his weathered face. For once, she’s glad for her rank.

Diane shrugs. “In conclusion, Nikita possesses strong mental reflexes. He is conscious of his size and physical abilities, a frequently recognized attribute. He possesses considerable confidence, awareness of his vigor and personal abilities; and considerable environmental perceptiveness that enable him to gain the upper hand over his rivals and observers through all tests and encounters. He is tough and pragmatic.”

“Russki…” No further words reach her ears. One of the agents moves to lay a hand on Howland’s shoulder. He shakes off the offense and froze. His mouth twists.

“Thank you, Doctor. You may retire.” Dismissed like that, the chairman goes silent. Conversations bubble up while the two agents acting as docent escort her back into the cavernous hall. Not for the first time, she ponders whether she ought to take up her sister’s offer to start that flower shop.

 


	17. Project: Adam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the Director's away, the mutinous agents will play. Adam and Kyr are easy targets for SHIELD's vendetta against the Soviets. But are they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Themesong: Marilyn Manson - Mephistopheles of Los Angeles

The two men in sweats follow the older woman out through the doors. He just catches the click of the lock setting back in place, that chattering buzz. They use the same back home, sealing them in the dark, chilly chambers when metal bars and prods prove insufficient.

Adam’s shoulders tighten. His hands shake. Pale sweeps of Kyr fill his peripheral vision: feet lifted, arm swept forward, hand grabbing the ball as it ricochets back off the ceiling.

“Adam, come on! You’re going to get hit in the head.”

He reflexively leans down, the ball whipping past to collide with a wall and deflect on a sharp upward trajectory. A snap of his arm sends it flying right back at the brown-haired man,

 _What was the point when the lesson ended?_ Still, he can’t find it in himself to call Kyr to sit down and wait patiently. Soon enough the orderlies shuffle them off to another room to answer questions or listen to music under the woman’s watchful gaze. All sitting, no doing.

Or this is the end. He prepares for that too.They walk too light footed, too nervous.

Kyr plants his foot on the wall and leaps up into the air, wrenched around in a circle to slam the rubber sphere through a ring mounted to the painted cinder blocks. Metal groans, a bolt torn two inches free of solid concrete.

“You’re not supposed to hang on it,” Adam calls.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”

They both shoot a look to the sealed door. Kyr drops from the basketball hoop, that’s what they call it, loping after the ball bouncing to the corner.

Fera lies thick on the air.

Life in a glass bowl is nothing new to them. Even alone, they know someone watches through the window or listens beyond the bars. No one speaks without a stranger repeating the exact words from an hour before.

Adam closes his hands around the yellow ball. His knuckles pop, ridges rippling high and softening in perpetual orogeny.

Kyr’s sneakers slap on the ground, a steady pace for the roundabout thoughts that never go anywhere. Ragged breathing, honest puffs and pants, reassure Adam very little. Something niggles at him.

Any time now, they’ll be stuck at a table, stuck in a chair, stuck sitting on a bunk. Stuck to an exam table.

His head hurts.

Adam tucks his feet under his backside and push up, an explosive motion bringing him to his feet. “Let’s get a move on. Get the ball in the hoop, huh?”

“Yeah!”

All range and enthusiasm, Kyr bolts out of stillness into explosive motion. He cuts sharply left to avoid Adam’s outstretched arm, leaping to take the wall up six feet into the air. A wonder the paint doesn’t have footprints streaked in grey and black.

He snatches at Kyr’s pant leg, fingers clutching the rigid calf and hauling him down to hit the ground.

The younger man breaks his fall on his hands, ribs stopping from a complete collision with millimeters to spare. He kicks the leaner soldier’s shins, a double blow fit to smash the knee caps backwards, and misses as Adam’s reversed roll opens up space.

Nothing’s quicker to get a rise from Kyr than sparring, and he exudes that happiness in a grin. Their scrambled rush erupts in a flurry of punches that Adam catches on his crossed wrists. He extends himself enough to seize Kyr’s elbow, locking it as they reverse. A pair of dancers on double time, their retreat to the middle of the room ends when he’s summarily thrown over Kyr’s hip.

Pain blooms on his shoulder as he rolls and hits the ground flat. Instinct pushes his knees up, ready to rock back up to his feet. Instead, an arm winds around his knee and crunches in. He knows the movement.

Anticipation urges hammering his extended fingers back into soft points. _Be real, what soft points? Kyr is made of rock._ The yelps satisfy some inner well. _Yes, there, and…_

Adam flips over to his side, hauling Kyr in a serpentine constriction. Not the smoothest break, but he throws an abbreviated upper cut at the younger man’s chin. A cross deflects his arm down, striking the meat of Kyr’s shoulder instead.

They scramble away from one another, stooped over. He needs something better than a ball to throw, but the attendants never offer much. No ropes, no sticks, nothing to be a weapon. Still, Adam wonders if the metal cage over a clock works.

He jogs and jumps, grabbing for the thick steel bars when the doors open again. His fingers latch through the grid and two hard flexes of his arms tear out the brackets. Not very aerodynamic, but he improvises. The cage makes a good choice to pin a limb with.

“ _Adam!_ ”

Fear never makes Kyr shrill, but deepens the tenor to a growl that lances through the vitals.

Kyr should never be afraid. Not with his mission to protect the younger man. He’s failed to hear that noise.

In a heartbeat, he hits the ground in a crouch and snaps his head up. Three men crowd around the brunet from behind, black silhouettes with faces reduced to goggles stretched over their faces. Guns ride at back, hip, hand. More stream through the corridor, a neat phalanx pointing the muzzles directly at head, torso, chest.

Too late to think. His fist closes, crushing the neat rectangle into an hourglass.

Someone holds a wire; he smells the ozone snapping acrid on the air. Kyr wrenches his arm away from the hands grabbing him, disembodied gloves stretching to seize the grey sweatshirt, the pants.

“No, don’t let them do it. I was good!”

They shout something over the loudspeaker in English, the noise lost in the squeaking sneakers and the falling hobnail boots.

“I’ll be good, I’ll be _good_!”

What was the point? They never listened in the dark. They won’t listen here in the light. Their handlers mean to torture them both by making Adam watch.

_There is only the mission. Protect him._

Raw pain shreds through the shouting, drowning out electricity. Lightning races down the wires into Kyr’s shaking body and there, he goes to his knees.

Uncontrollable shudders race through contracting, spasming biceps and pectoral muscles.

“Be good,” Doctor Farnsworth tried to tell them every time, every visit. “When you talk and stand still, they feel a few around you. You are good young men, but they see you and forget that. They see…”

Him. _Traitor. Killer. Trash. Oughta-be-dead, deserves-a-firing-squad, do they even do it anymore?_

Adam hears what the guards mutter. He knows the agents’ opinion.

The death squad. That’s all those two are good for, said the men over their coffees and lonely vigils.

The same men approach now, faceless blurs in the fluorescent strobe. Not ones mobbing the crouched young man on his knees, but the others out of the hallway looking for their chance. They point the dreadful guns on him, sizing up the best way to take it.

Not so different from every other day of his life, really. Shouting at him to drop the cage and put his hands up over his head dimly echoes in his mind. Surprising they’d think that will stop him.

And there’s Kyr’s face, soaked in sweat and fresh blood, his frost-blue eye too wide. He doesn’t want to fight them.

That look. He knows that look. He knows.

Adam knows nothing.

He sidearms the metal cage into the face of the nearest soldier and lunges into movement. The fool raises his hand to block his face, they always do, and he tears the stock out of gloved hands.

First bullets ricochet and a voice shouts, “ _Take them alive, don’t kill them_.”

He swings the semi-automatic rifle down and the blossoming gunfire throws them back, bloody feet on mincing steps. Messy work. Never would make Anastasiya happy stumbling like that. His teacher is good enough to perform in the Bolshoi, she taught him well, and caned him for every stumble. A thought of her in the mirrored practice room cracks and he falls into the fugue of wrath again.

One goes down, open, and Adam plunges in.

The gun makes an extension on his arm and they can’t keep up, no one finding a way in through the sweeping defense when he bunny punches it into their guts, their faces, their arms. Snatching up two makes for quicker work, so he takes the fallen soldier’s gun and rams the solid butt into someone’s knee.

That pop sounds good.

He processes them moving and turns among them, letting blows fall on his back rather than anywhere else, vital. Guard the core, the center. No hurt slows him down.

Not until the bullet strikes his upper arm, cutting clean along the outer edge. Grazed shards burn hot worming lines down but he takes a breath and dives in deep.

Old friend, pain, it helps keeps the focus, don’t they know that? No, apparently not. They weren’t trained to embrace their hurt and drink in the cold to carry out the mission.

An agent shouts, “Get the other one out, get him _down_!”

Kyr rises up with one of them in a lock, palm pressed to the jugular, and the slack man is gaping, mouth a red hole and eyes bulging.

Adam approves of this action. _Smart, decisive. Neutralize the enemies, fast._ A quick twist and that would all end the agent’s life, but the onyx wave surges again to drown the room. They think darkness helps their cause. Adam and Kyr dance to death in the dark as easily as the light.

Lightning shines where they try to shove the wires at Kyr again.

Wires catch on the cotton pants and he steps back, hurling the semi-conscious-dead-maybe agent into the other soldiers.

Bad move. The rage is palpable on the air and they turn on Kyr, a mob throwing punches and pairing off in hopes of taking down the weakest link.

_Stupid. He was never, ever the weakest._

They never knew how Kyr ran bare-chested in the snow or sat on the tundra until the distant, watery sunlight breached the horizon for just an hour or two. He laughed and recited the silly phrases that rhymed after frostbitten, prodded all the way into the sterile clinic room by the white-coats. When the rest of them fell, there he stood, staring at the horizon or smiling despite the pain.

Adam lunges.

For Kyr, he has to be stronger. Faster. Not enough.

* * *

“They won’t hurt you.”

He said that. The one like them, the heretic the Americans caught. _Yasha,_ he’s called. The Americans fear him and pretend to show respect.

He had their face and their voice, so very ignorant of how things had to be.

The Mephistopheles of Brooklyn. The one man with the crooked teeth called Yasha that, and all of them.

_Mephistopheles of Siberia, Mephistopheles of the Gulag, double-crossing devils who ought to be shot._

He lied to Kyr. He lied in the farm with the other men carted out to their helicopter. Adam wants to throw a fist in James Barnes’ face. But first he has to survive.

* * *

 

Adam throws the agents into one another, twisting their arms aside. Guards scatter like chaff before him. He dares to hope for an opening for Kyr to escape.

The first law of Russia: hope is fatal.

The blow, when it comes, pushes him forward and he follows the current of violence raining down on him as they swarm him in a circular wall.

Protecting his face with his arms, he takes the blows, absorbing what he can. No guns. Guns mean death. These men haven’t drawn, no telling why.

Nothing says he can’t take their weapons, shoving them into groins and chests. He grunt out too loud, through bloody lips, when a truncheon slams down across his shoulders.

 _Yes, just a little more._ Kyr might not have the Champion of the Motherland, who was just his foolish story, to rescue him from peril but Adam can pretend. Only a second, only a few more.

If he can just stand a little longer, they won’t know he runs.

He glances through the blur and sees the gap in the door, the bodies mingled around him too thick to make out more beyond charcoal streak legs and sleeves. A dim slice of light in the dark.

Kyr sees it too.

The super soldier heaves himself up and seizes one of the balls.

_Good, good. No gun._

He kicks off his shoes in the first ten steps, and the efficient form emerged.

It’s beautiful to see his mission, his ward, in flight. Such raw strength in motion can’t be matched by the Americans.

Adam has no envy, wouldn’t know it if he tried. How can he hate the smooth perfection of someone who ran through the woods and trod across the tundra after the last soldiers collapsed in exhaustion?

“« _Brother!_ »”

He shouts the encouragement before someone hauls him backwards, wrenching him off his knees. They are savage dogs, the hungry ones who chew on everything precious and tear pieces out. The blows fall and he sees the butt of the rifle closing on his face.

Then blessed darkness.

* * *

 

 _Out._ There is always an out as there is always an in.

Evgeniy knows out better than almost any of them. His voice rings out in Kyr’s thoughts. He is not alone even though he abandoned Adam and left Nikita behind, and every last person the Americans scattered.

He caroms around a corner into a blind hallway, doors set against him. He sinks his fingers into the frame of one, feeling for the seal or a gap between the jam and the metal.

Thunder booms behind him. He squats a little and screams, the howl of a wolf. Veins erupt under his strained skin, the muscles bursting up and his body shudders, contorted.

Hinges pop and seize. He tears the corner out, out and down. Blood on splitting fingertips slides off the metal but he flings away the slab to the side.

This is freedom.

He dashes through the hallway to the next barrier, one sealed like the first, and repeats himself all over again. This time the door twists and leaves a gap instead of coming away. Just enough space to get through if he pushes himself. Kyr climbs and presses himself into the hole, ignoring the cloth that tore on the edges and his skin opened up by sharp bits.

He drops into the corridor and sprinted out, past the offices slammed shut, past the souls huddled low, past women crying behind their desks.

Hissing, traitorous ghosts in the machine whisper, “ _Initiate lockdown. All personnel are to remain in secure areas. This is not a drill._ ”

It would be as Adam wanted. He’ll find their brother.

They will all be free.

 


End file.
